A SHORT 
WORLD HISTORY 

E.M.WILMOT-BUXTON 




Qass Jl^4J. 
Book _: 



A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 



A 
SHORT WORLD HISTORY 



BY 

E. M. WILMOT-BUXTON 

"F.R.Hist.S. 

AUTHOR OF "MAKERS OF EUROPE" ETC. 



NEW YORK 

E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 






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OX INTRODUCTION 



1 



A ■ A O write a complete History of the World within the 

■ limits assigned to this book would be, of course, to 
attempt the impossible. But the necessity of giving 
a wider view of history than is afforded by the courses 
iusually followed in schools is so strongly felt to-day, that even 
'a partial story of world development may be found useful 
|as a class book, all the more, perhaps, because it does not 
pretend to deal exhaustively with the subject. 

To attempt to deal with world history in more than one 
of its many aspects seems likely to court disaster ; and all 
that has been done here is to trace, very simply, the line 
of economic development throughout the rise and fall of 
Empires, showing in closest connexion with this theme 
the general principles of cause and effect, as one nation 
after another rises, comes to the front, and passes away into 
obscurity. If the method thus adopted emphasizes the 
application of these principles to the World War of the 
present century, one chief aim of the writer has been ful- 
filled. 

The book presupposes a general knowledge of the chief 
events, places, and personages of history, and does not deal 
with military, biographical, or political details. For such a 
subject, wide reviews, general principles, broad touches are 
more in place. 

It should be found suitable, therefore, for young students 



vi A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

who, having worked through the ordinary scheme of British 
and European history, are prepared for a more extended 
view. 

The study of World History should prove most interesting 
and stimulating to those who have even the merest spark of 
the historical sense. It will link up previous knowledge, 
often sadly disconnected in character ; it will reveal the 
extraordinarily close connexion between ages and peoples 
widely differing in their stages of civilization ; it will show the 
legacy which each period left to its successors. More especi- 
ally it will reveal the true perspective of the story of their 
own country by painting in the background, against which 
modern history must be set if it is to be rightly understood. 

Lastly, since it is hoped that the study of economics 
will form a part of the education of all our future citizens, 
this method of reading World History may help to make 
familiar some of its leading principles as seen in practical 
application. 

A list of books, to most of which the writer owes a debt of 
gratitude, has been appended to each section, as suggesting 
sources for wider study of the subject. 

E. M. W.-B. 

Storrington 

January ig2i ^ 



CONTENTS 

SECTION I 
THE ANCIENT EMPIRES OF THE WORLD 

CHAP. PAGE 

I. Before the Days of History . . . . i 

II. The Ancient Civilizations of the East . . 7 

Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, Persia, Phcenicia, 
Jud/EA 

III. The Far East . . . . . , 30 

China, India 

IV. The "Glory of Greece" . . . . 41 
V. The " Splendour of Rome " .. . . .53 



SECTION II 
THE MEDIEVAL WORLD 



■-St- 

" VI. The Fall of the Roman Empire 

The First Six Centuries of the Christian Era 

VII. The Empire of Islam .... 

VIII. The New Nations . . . . 

IX. The Eastern World in the Middle Ages 

X. The Later Mediaeval World of Europe . 

XI. The Later Medieval World of Asia 



65 

83 

93 

106 

119 

131 



viii A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

SECTION III 

THE MODERN WORLD 

CHAP. PAGE 

XII. The Growth of Nations .... 138 

XIII. The Disruption of Europe . . . .148 

XIV. New Worlds for Old. . . . . 157 j 

America and India 

XV. The Era of Colonization .... 168 I 

1 

XVI. "Great Powers" and "Benevolent Despots" . 178 j 

XVII. Revolution— Industrial and Political . . 189 I 

XVIII. The Era of Progress and Reform . . . 199 

XIX. The World of To-day . . . •. 209 ij 

Index . . . . . . . .215 



A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

SECTION I 
THE ANCIENT EMPIRES OF THE WORLD 

CHAPTER I 
BEFORE THE DAYS OF HISTORY 

IF you who read this book have visited the British 
Museum, you will have seen some of those wonderful 
friezes of Ancient Greece, which show in a series of 
pictures the life of heroes and the everyday deeds of 
the people of that land. Back through the ages they take 
us to the days of men and women and children very much 
like ourselves, though living under different conditions in 
lands far distant from our own. To us they stretch their 
hands, to us they seem to speak, reminding us of the strong 
links that bind together all races and tribes and peoples into 
one connected whole. 

In tr}dng to realize the story of the past, it will perhaps 
help us if we study in imagination a gigantic frieze long 
enough to embrace the circumference of the earth. On it 
we may note the figures o^ men and women who played 
some striking part in the history of their lands, and, more 
often, men and women who are merely typical of their race 
and period. These differ much from time to time, but they 
still form part of one continuous and gigantic whole, part 
of the great human family, always affecting one another, 
bringing certain characteristics to bear upon the common 
stock. Sometimes they help, sometimes they hinder, the 
progress of the race towards its common goal ; always they 
I 



2 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

count for something, and the world would have been different 
in some particular way if they had never appeared upon the 
stage of human life. And always these figures progress in 
one direction ; seeing that the goal is the same for the pre- 
historic man as for us who read about him nowadays ; and 
that goal is Human Happiness. 

Prehistoric Man — The first figures that appear upon the 
frieze are grouped in packs like animals, for reasons of 
defence against unknown dangers. They are clothed in 
skins, and in their hands they carry a rough stone tool or 
weapon, shaped like a hammer ; for their first impulse 
towards happiness arises from the need of slaying a wild 
animal for their meals and of making a shelter of some kind 
from the cold. Long before the days of history these wolf- 
men appeared in the midst of a world upheaved by volcanoes 
and torn by glaciers, in which a struggle for bare life was 
taking place among vast animals, mammoth ox and bison 
and woolly-haired rhinoceros, fighting for their existence not 
only with one another but with the powers of nature. And 
among the huge bones and skeletons, embedded in caves far 
below the surface of the earth, we find the skulls of Primitive 
Man of the Old Stone Age. 

Primitive he was indeed, but still he was true man ; for 
he had thought out the use to which he might put his stone 
hammer when made, and how and why he should shape 
a handle for it. He knew how to make a fire and how to 
cook his meal, which is more than the wisest beast could 
ever do. 

. One of his temporary abiding - places found in recent 
times in Germany, shows the very charcoal that he used, 
the smoke-stained fire-place, and the bones of the slain beasts. 
No trace of clay vessel is there, nor of domestic animal. If 
he kept a dog, he did so for its flesh, which he tore from the 
bones with a stone knife or the lower jaw of a bear before 
sucking the marrow from them. We find there, too, the arrow- 
head with which he killed the bear, harpoons of reindeer 
horn for catching fish, and cups made from a reindeer's 
skull. 



BEFORE THE DAYS OF HISTORY 8 

At the end of this earliest period of man's existence he 
was beginning to find some of his happiness in " dressing 
up " ; for we find a horse's tooth perforated for hanging 
round his neck, pierced shells for decoration, bone needles 
with " eyes," and scrapers for dressing skins. At this 
period man was evidently a hunter and a fisherman, holding 
property, in the shape of the creatures that he killed, in 
common with the " pack," with the members of which he 
herded round the fire at night, and slaked his thirst in the 
dew-pond among the hills at dawn. 

New Stone Age — In the next period, the New Stone 
Age, primitive man had taken a step forward. He still 
knew nothing of agriculture or cattle-rearing, but he could 
make clay vessels for cooking and storing food ; he could 
"point " his needles of bone, and make small bone combs for 
combing out sinews into thread. He could even make a kind 
of boat from which to catch fish. But he was still only a 
" squatter " or trapper, with no fixed abode, and his ideal 
of happiness was little more than a hearty meal. 

Then come signs of advance in civilization, for his wants 
had evidently increased in number. Excavations show us 
implements for spinning and weaving ; and ornaments, beads 
of pierced clay, plates decorated with stags' heads, round 
buttons, bracelets of mother of pearl, combs of boxwood, 
hairpins. By his side appear the dog, the horse, the cow, 
the goat. His pottery was now made of finer clay, smoothed 
by hand, and baked through instead of only burnt on the 
outside ; a handle appeared, and a shaped jar or jug. 

In the later Stone Age man had become an agriculturist, 
as well as a huntsman and fisherman. He had a settled 
home, generally in a hut built with many others on piles in 
the middle of a lake, which afforded him protection against 
hostile tribes or wild beasts. Among the remains of these 
we find the millstones with which he ground his corn, the 
twirling sticks for butter-making, and the strainers for cheese. 
Mats, baskets, combs, even toy ships for his children, were 
among his possessions. He had become a farmer of sorts. 
His wants were no longer bounded by his bodily needs. He 



4 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

began to realize, dimly enough, that he also had a soul, which 
survived death. So when his relations and friends were laid to 
rest under the huge '"barrows" or mounds still to be found 
both in Europe and America, he laid beside the dead body a 
supply of weapons and food for use in the next world. 

The Bronze Age and the Iron Age — The next stage 
of man's development is marked by the use of metals. In 
place of mud huts we now find the remains of wooden dwell- 
ings and indications of metal work in bronze. There are the 
casting moulds, the melting pots, sure indications of the 
development of man's intellect, since he had discovered that 
a mixture of copper and tin in a certain proportion would 
give him hard and durable metal known as bronze. 

Then comes the period when man discovered the use of 
iron. Excavations at Olympia in Greece show us, swords 
with blades of iron and handles of bronze. By this time the 
twilight period is nearly over and we are emerging into the 
light of history. But before we leave the story of primitive 
man, let us glance for a minute at the remains of the once 
famous city of Troy, now known as Hissarlik, on the western 
shore of Asia Minor. 

The Stones o! Troy — Here we get an extraordinary 
illustration of the different periods of man's growth shown 
in cities, found in layers, " one upon the other like the leaves 
of a bud, so that you can read them as from the leaves of a 
book." Seven or eight distinct towns, erected one on top 
of another, give us the connexion between the Stone Age 
and the most brilliant period of Greek and Roman history. 

The earliest city, built probably four thousand years 
before the Christian era, shows rough clay vessels and stone 
weapons among the remains of a small and primitive 
settlement. 

The next marks a startling change in development. It 
belongs to the first period of the glory of Ancient Troy, and 
shows mighty walls, and fine gateways replacing the old 
narrow entrances. A citadel and hall were built of bricks 
made with straw, amongst which a miser had hidden a 
treasure, found some three thousand years later. The tools 



BEFORE THE DAYS OF HISTORY 5 

were made partly of stone, partly of bronze, showing how 
the two periods overlapped. Pots turned on a wheel mark 
the influence of Oriental civilization. This city, the scene of 
the great legendary siege, was evidently destroyed by fire. 

No new features mark the next three towns, and a long 
period of stagnation must have followed the early glory of 
Troy. But the sixth town shows another great advance. 
The walls were built of large, smooth blocks ; fine gates, 
terraces, and stately mansions appeared, and in these were 
found vessels of shining colours, highly ornamented. 

A barbaric wave seems to have passed over the seventh 
and eighth cities, and Troy deteriorated into a mere village, 
until it was rebuilt by Lysimachus in the days of history. 

Even more wonderful are the revelations of an early 
civilization at Knossos in Crete, and at Mycenae and Tiryns 
in Greece. But as these belong more particularly to the 
history of Greece, we will read of them in that connexion. 

Let us for a moment glance at the progress primitive man 
had made on what is called the " economic " side of civiliza- 
tion. Originally he was one member of a tribal family, 
holding property of the simplest kind in common with those 
who were descended from the same ancestor or " patriarch." 
Different forms of activity, however, began to mark out 
rough distinctions ; and " classes " of huntsmen, fishermen, 
hut-builders, and so on began to appear. Presently other 
tribes approached and members intermarried ; the family 
instinct developed, and the " family " drawing apart from 
the rest, was allowed to claim the fruits of its own toil under 
certain conditions. Later on, the advantages of exchanging 
a surplus of skins or logs for one of shells or good sound 
flints for hammer-heads became evident. And when work 
was done outside the family circle in return for some gift of 
arrow-heads or corn, the right of the individual to hold that 
reward as his own marked the growth of the idea of personal 
property. Still, however, the claim of the community was 
strong, and the whole family, or clan, was held responsible 
for the actions of individual members. Then the idea of 
" law '* began to develop, first out of a kind of blind instinct 



6 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

for justice, then out of settled custom, sometimes out of the 
ideals of isolated " lawgivers." 

The idea of a " State " now began to dawn upon pre- 
historic man, as strange tribes, on conditions of paying tribute 
and service, settled near his own. The Chieftain took the 
place of the Patriarch ; and if the tribe was warlike in its 
tastes, a " militant " class split off from the shepherd or farmer 
class, and the members of this devoted their time to fighting 
with their neighbours for supremacy. 

Sometimes a great leap towards civilization was made 
under the pressure of some revolt against oppression, or the 
influence of some unusual personality. And so, during an 
immensely long period of time, primitive man had gradually 
developed from the state of a savage until he stepped upon 
the stage of actual history as a rudimentary citizen. 



EXERCISES 

1. What are the chief points which mark off prehistoric from 
historic man ? 

2. What are the main stepping-stones towards civilization 
during the prehistoric period ? 

3. Describe with pen or paint-brush your own idea of st pre- 
historic scene. 



CHAPTER II 

THE ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST: 

EGYPT, BABYLONIA, ASSYRIA, PERSIA, 

PHCENICIA, JUDiEA 

(4000 B.C.) 

FOLLOWING the thin vague line of prehistoric 
figures upon our imaginary frieze, we see certain 
groups of men and women cut in bold relief and 
painted in brilliant colours. The first group shows a 
fair-haired, olive-skinned race, with oval face and shghtly 
projecting lips. The long beards of the men turn stiffly up 
at the points ; both men and women wear short hair, ihe 
second group has more distinctly African characteristics, 
with low forehead, heavy jaw and lips. In the midst of them 
stands a full-length figure, stiffly holding a stick m his hand. 
He is evidently the Great Man, lord of a district, and the 
smaller figures, digging, hunting, temple-buildmg are his 
slaves In the background flocks of sheep are treadmg seed 
into soft mud on either side of a wide river ; and above m the 
distance looms a pyramid. A«.;or.+ 

Ancient Egypt-The scene takes us back to Ancient 
Egypt, somewhere about four thousand years before the 
^ristian era, at a time when Menes, first king of the whole 
land of the Nile, had established his capital at Memphis. 

Concerning the early civihzation of Egypt we have an 
immense amount of information. The results of excavation 
tell us plainly what was the daily life of the people, even to 
such details as the dolls which the children played with and 
the fairy tales they read. But as to how this extraordmarily 
advanced civilization developed scarcely anything is known. 
It is thought that the earhest people were of a pigmy race 



8 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

like those still found at the sources of the Nile; the period 
between their occupation of the land and that of the dwellers 
under the Ancient Empire is a blank. 

The Ancient Empire of Egypt (e. 4000 B.C.)-— The whole 
story of Egypt is one of glowing dynasties separated by 
periods of darkness. Thus we see first in full blaze of history 
the ten dynasties of the Ancient Empire, with their Pyramids 
and Temple Builders, and their seat of rule at Memphis, on 
the site of which Cairo now stands. The people were ruled 
by despotic kings, nominally aided by a council of nobles ; 
in later days, colleges of priests, owning lands and money, 
held much power in the land, besides holding control over its 
literature and learning. 

On the rocks of Egypt is portrayed the figure of one of 
these early rulers, Seneferu, in the act of crushing a fallen foe 
with a huge hammer. The inscription speaks of him as " the 
great god, subduer of foreign lands, giver of power, stability, 
life, all health and joy for ever." He was the personification 
of the Sun God Ra, the midday sun, who controlled the flow 
and ebb of the Nile, the river on which the life of Egypt 
depended, so that the people reckoned their new year from 
the day on which it began to rise. The faith of the people 
was also closely bound up with their famous river. 

As the day waned, crowds of worshippers followed the 
course of Tum, the setting sun, as he floated on his journey 
to the regions of the Under World. Thither also descended 
the souls of the dead, to be judged by Osiris, who sent them 
forth to the lands of bliss, or through the House of Truth, 
to reappear again upon the earth in the form of animals. 

Religion was the very breath of these people of the Nile. 
A host of other gods held sway over them, as well as a 
crowd of sacred animals — the bull, fish, cat, and crocodile — 
which were " incarnations " of the spirits of the gods. Guard- 
ing the land, with its face of mystery turned towards the 
East, crouched the Sphinx, probably the image of Harmachis, 
Sun of the Under World, combining in its man's head and 
lion's body the ideas of intellect and strength. The P3n:amids, 
those mighty cemeteries of kings, are an abiding witness to 



ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST 

the belief in the importance of the preservation of the body 
that it might be a fit habitation for the returning soul. 

The Middle Empire (? 2500 B.C.)— During the four dynasties 
of the Middle Empire, Thebes replaced Memphis as the capital, 
and its temple of Amen at Karnak, one of the suburbs of the 
city, became the centre of Egyptian religion. During this 
period the tomb inscriptions show us the building of a fleet, 
and caravans bringing gums and spices from Arabia. The 
caravan routes between Egypt and the Red Sea were opened 
up by the provision of wells ; reservoirs were freely built, 
canals constructed, and good roads made. In the earlier 
days, the kings, occupied with their own personal glory, 
employed their people to build pyramids that should per- 
petuate their names for ever. Under the kings of the Middle 
Empire, temples were built instead, and the land was guarded 
well from invasion. Of Amen-em-hat, that mighty hunter, 
who " brought back the crocodile a prisoner," it was well 
and simply said : " He stood on the boundaries of the land 
to keep watch on its borders ; and all the people loved him." 

It was during this period that the famous Book of the 
Dead took its final form. It was the Egyptian Bible, and 
contained not only a history of the doctrines and faith of the 
land, but also a code of morals for everyday life. 

The Hyksos Kings (? 1750 B.C.)— Quite suddenly this state 
of comparatively advanced culture collapsed before the on- 
slaught of a horde of Eastern tribes, who established the rule 
of what is known as the Hyksos or Shepherd Kings. Says 
the Egyptian historian Manetho : "There came up from the 
East in strange manner men of an ignoble race who easily 
subdued our country by their power. They burnt our cities 
and demolished the temples of the gods, and inflicted every 
kind of barbarity upon the inhabitants, slaying some, and 
reducing the wives and children of others to a state of 
slavery." 

Of the events of this calamitous wave of barbarism no 
inscription remains. It was but one of the constantly re- 
curring episodes of history, the collapse of a race grown soft 
with overmuch civilization and a luxurious manner of life 



10 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

before the strength of a simply Uving nomad race. But it is 
interesting to note that it was probably owing to his pas- 
toral origin that Joseph, son of Jacob the Patriarch, owed his 
advancement to be Vizier under one of the kings of this 
Shepherd dynasty. 

The New Empire (c. 1700 B.C.)— The beginning of the New 
Empire (about 1700 B.C.) saw the expulsion of the alien kings 
at the hands of Amasis I, a Theban prince, and the spirit of 
invasion taking possession of his grandson, Thothmes. The 
inscription on the monument of the latter speaks glowingly 
of this young conqueror : "He has taken tribute from the 
nations of the whole earth ; he has laid hold of the bar- 
barians, he has not let one of them escape his grip upon their 
hair ; all the nations of the entire earth are prostrate under 
his feet." 

The Egyptian historians were always grandiloquent ; 
but Thothmes was of importance as a maker of his country, 
since, by the rough-and-ready mode of conquest of some part 
of South- Western Asia, where the power of Babylon and 
Assjnria and of the mixed races of Palestine was now rearing 
its head, he brought Egypt into touch with the outer world 
from which she had so long held herself aloof. His daughter, 
the famous Hatasu, carried on the work by building a great 
fleet of merchant ships wherewith to explore the shores of 
the Red Sea. On the temple of Amen (or Ammon) near 
Thebes we see portrayed the return of the fleet, packed full 
of incense trees, gums, and spices, bringing the Queen of 
Sheba, or Punt, to pay a state visit to the Egyptian princess. 

The Golden Age 0! Egypt — The Golden Age of Egypt 
had now dawned. It needed only that she should win herself 
a name for military glory. Under the rule of Thothmes HI 
this was achieved by victories over the armies of Palestine 
and by yearly campaigns against Syria. Babylon and 
Assyria sent Thothmes gifts, if not tribute. His fleet of 
warships is said to have penetrated even to the coasts of 
Greece. At the end of his reign Egypt was recognized as 
the chief military power of the known world ; and the obelisk, 
called by a queen of much later days " Cleopatra's Needle," 



ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST 11 

was probably one of the pillars of a portico of his temple 
set up to record the fact. 

The Empire of Thothmes, which extended as far into 
Western Asia as the mountains of Armenia, was lost under his 
successors. It seemed, indeed, as though the glory of Egypt 
was to be won through her internal development rather than 
by conquest. In the days of Seti I and Rameses II we hear 
indeed of great victories over the " Kheta " tribe — probably 
the Hittites — ^but they were never very lasting in their effects. 
More important achievements of Setis were the great wall built 
by him to repel invasion across the isthmus which connects 
Egypt with Asia, and the wonderful Hall of Pillars at Karnak. 

As for Rameses, he is memorable to modern readers as 
being in all probability the Pharaoh who " oppressed " the 
Israelites, who " made their lives bitter in mortar and in 
brick and in all manner of service in the field." The reason 
of this oppression may well have been that this little group 
of shepherd people dwelling on his borders had so rapidly 
increased, that they bade fair to threaten the exclusiveness 
of a kingdom from which all Asiatics were to be rigidly shut 
out. On the great rampart separating Egypt from Asia 
were built the " treasure cities," Pithom and Rameses-; and 
on their building the subject shepherds were probably em- 
ployed. Of their dehverance at the hand of Moses, the 
protege of the court of Menepthah, we have no mention in 
Egyptian history. 

The Decline of Egypt (c. 1130-750 B.C.)— The decline of 
Egypt was as rapid as her rise. At a time when the kingdoms 
of Judah and Israel were rising and falling under Saul and 
David, Rehoboam and Jeroboam, Ahab and Jehu, the land 
of the Nile was divided up under various rulers and sinking 
into apathy and ruin. And as the great war-cloud of the 
Assyrian nation darkened in the East, threatening to over- 
whelm all the empires of Central and Western Asia, Egypt 
became, sometime during the century that saw the founda- 
tion of the city of Rome, the battle-ground and the prize of 
the Assyrian kings, and in later years the tributary of Babylon 
and Persia. 



12 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

She has left to the world at large a remarkable literature, 
in itself a testimony to the esteem paid to the world of ideas 
rather than of facts by this, one of the most highly civilized 
nations of antiquity. At Karnak we may still see the " Hall 
of Books," out of which lead nine smaller libraries, which 
originally contained a wealth of writing on rolls of papyrus. 
This writing was in hieroglyphics or priestly script, to which 
the Rosetta Stone, with its translations both into Greek and 
into the ordinary writing of the people, gave the Modern 
World the key. Romance, fairy tales, adventure stories, 
moral sayings, and poems are found among the treasures 
hidden in the tombs, as well as treatises on astronomy, 
arithmetic, and geometry. We still use the Egyptian division 
of the year into twelve months and the hour into sixty 
minutes ; and in the British Museum may be seen to-day 
the very instrument by which the night hours were deter- 
mined by the course of the stars. On the handle of the 
plummet used is inscribed the words : " I know the course of 
the sun, the moon, and of all the stars in their places." 

The Legacy of Egypt — As " thinkers," then, especially 
in the realms of literature and science ; as mighty builders, 
canal-makers, and agriculturists, the Egyptians move with 
stiff dignity across the frieze of history, owing little to 
outside influences, but affecting with their own civilization 
the western lands of the Mediterranean to a marked degree. 
That this influence was only temporary is perhaps due to one 
striking weakness in Egyptian rule. Her army might be 
equipped with the most perfect weapons in the shape of 
chariots, battering rams, and scaling ladders, her fleet im- 
posing with galleys and transports ; but her people as a 
whole, the " producers," the weavers, painters, sculptors, 
masons, and workers in wood and metal, were kept in such 
subordination that they were little better than slaves. The 
husbandmen, moreover, had no rights over the land they tilled, 
but paid heavy toll of its produce, which left nothing but a 
bare livelihood for themselves. There is one other thing to 
remember. The native Egyptian had nothing of the military 
spirit in his veins, and the great armies of which we read 



ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST 13 

were composed of foreigners, mostly professional soldiers 
from Syria and Nubia. Under those kings who sought their 
country's welfare by means of the industry of their people and 
the native resources of the land, Egypt was a strong pro- 
gressive state, with the ability to build monuments throughout 
her borders which astound the skilled engineer of to-day. 

It was the sacrifice of these resources for the " im- 
perial " ambitions of the kings of the Middle Empire that 
brought economic and political disaster upon the land and 
ended in her subjection. 

It is interesting to note that the women of Egypt held a 
far higher position than was usual in the Eastern World. They 
were not kept in seclusion nor treated as slaves, and were 
considered almost, though not quite, on an equality with 
their husbands. In the upper classes we find men and 
women living in the married state in their two-storied brick 
houses, in much comfort, possessing sofas, chairs, ornamented 
cushions, and other signs of luxury. Outside, the slaves drive 
the plough, and the processes of wine-making and Hnen- 
weaving are portrayed. The many pictures of richly decked 
ships bearing merchandise speak of a flourishing commerce 
with the countries of the Mediterranean. 

Egypt, with her many dynasties, her vast organization, 
her self -development, stands somewhat apart from the other 
civilizations of the Ancient World. The empires that are 
crowded, Hke outposts round a citadel, about the district 
known as Middle Asia are far more closely connected. 

Influence o! Central Asia— Whether this part of the 
world saw the origin of the human race or not matters little. 
What is certain is that the higher civiUzation, which marked 
the development of mankind, came from this quarter, and 
that by means of great caravan routes, early estabhshed, 
it spread by way of Babylon to China, India, Egypt, and 
so to the lands of the Western Sea. And when civiUzation 
died down and almost vanished, it was this same district 
that sent forth streams of warhke nomads to shake the 
foundations of the known world. 

Ancient Babylonia — In the " land between the Rivers," 



14 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

still known as Mesopotamia, bounded by the Tigris and 
Euphrates, lay the kingdom of Babylon. Its first inhabitants 
were the mysterious Sumerians, who, though they themselves 
have disappeared from the pages of history, yet left behind 
them a highly developed religious system and a language 
which, like Latin in Christendom, survived as the sacred 
tongue of the religion of their successors. All else we know 
of them is comprised in the fact that they were a pastoral 
people, though they knew well how to construct waterways, 
use metals, make bricks, and build some kind of dwelling. 
When the Babylonians of history appear upon our frieze 
we see in them the characteristics of the Semitic race, such 
as are found in the Jew of to-day. Some of them are 
occupied in making canals, building temples of bricks 
instead of the stone we should expect ; others are examining 
the stars or writing on clay tablets ; m^any are engaged 
in lading caravans or travelling the high roads to distant 
lands. 

For Ancient Babylon was not a great military power, 
nor a political state of importance. Her high position was 
due to her development as an industrial state, and thus 
to her trade with nations lying East and West. The great 
trade routes to China, India, and Egypt were in her hands, 
and when she fell before the onslaught of the Assyrian, the 
city of Babylon was destroyed in order that its vast trade 
and industries might be secured for Nineveh, the city of 
Sennacherib. 

The Code of Hammurabi (? 2213 B.C.) — A flood of 
light has been thrown in recent years ^ on the civilization 
of Babylonia during her Golden Age, by the discovery of a 
great block of diorite on the mound of the citadel of Susa 
inscribed with the " Code " of Hammurabi, the first king 
of the whole land of Babylonia. In his lifetime he was 
famous as the Wise King, who built not only temples but 
waterworks and embankments against the inundations of 
the Tigris, and who began the Royal Canal, connecting the 
Euphrates and Tigris, which, as he says himself, " he caused 

1 December 1901. 



ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST 15 

to be dug as a benediction for the people ... he changed 
desert plains into well-watered grounds." 

The famous Code reveals a postal system, flourishing 
commerce, highly organized industry, and a system of laws 
so detailed and perfect that it has been thought to be the 
foundation of the famous Roman Law of later days. By 
its means, says the inscription, he taught the Babylonians 
" just statutes and righteous ordinances." Such details as 
the following recall in cuiious fashion the laws of early and 
mediaeval England. " If a man steal in a burning house, 
let him be thrown upon the same fire." " If the harvest 
be bad, the debtor may postpone his payment for a while." 
There is also mention of an Ordeal by Water, by which the 
river god decided the guilt or innocence of the accused. 
Most of the provisions of this Code had, however, been in use 
for long centuries. It was the work of Hammurabi to collect 
and enforce the various laws. 

Besides this Code, we have another striking evidence of 
civilization in a design showing a Babylonian king setting 
free a vassal. Both figures wear the square beards of the 
Oriental, but the head-dress of the king is pointed, while 
the vassal wears a fiat cap. The king holds up the deed of 
manumission in an earthenware cylinder. 

Organization of the Land — From other sources we know 
that the " lord of the land " was a deity who " entrusted " the 
country to the king and the priests. The land was divided 
up into Temple property and State property. The latter 
was the open country, which the king granted to vassals 
*' in fee " ; that is, the latter cultivated it as small farmers 
and had to pay a large share of the profits to the " lord." 
The town land was granted to the nobles, and a large part 
of both kinds was held by the priests as " temple land." 
The system was unfair enough, since the peasant who did 
the main part of the work barely gained a living, though 
he was, as a rule, a freeman. Serfs, indeed, were not legally 
known, though there was a large class of " non-free labourers," 
mostly prisoners of battle. The chief occupations of the people 
were agriculture and commerce, though, as they had no fleet, 



16 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

the latter was mainly a " caravan trade.'* In this rainless 
land, the trade of the people depended on the ceaseless 
industry by means of which they covered the country with 
a network of canals. These were sometimes used, as in 
Holland, to transform the kingdom into an island as a 
protection from outside foes. It was the foul deed of the 
Mongol in later days which, by destrojdng these canals, 
turned this fair land into a marshy desert. 

The Babylonians were builders of note, though they had 
neither stone nor wood. Their temples and pillars were 
built of bricks, when they were not constructed of imported 
cedar wood ; and they enamelled their bricks with beautiful 
colours and patterns. Their terraced towers of many stories 
gave rise to the legend which makes them builders of the 
Tower of Babel. Their beautiful temples were the univer- 
sities of the land, forming towns in themselves, where the 
priests, the guardians of the science and literature of the 
country, who alone knew the secret of writing, gave instruc- 
tion to students who came from all quarters to acquire learn- 
ing from their famous store. For Babylon, twenty-three 
centuries before the Christian era, was as famous as the home 
of astrology and astronomy as in the year of the birth of 
our Lord, when the meaning of the star was sought by 
Wise Men of the East. 

Second Empire o£ Babylon, or Chaldsea (607 B.C.) — So 
strong indeed was the inward force of her intellectual energy 
that not even the deadweight of the Assyrian invasion 
could stamp out her vitality. But by making her perforce 
a military nation instead of a purely industrial one, it marked 
the beginning of the end. Crushed she was for a time by the 
rude hand of Sennacherib, but in the seventh century B.C., 
under the name of Chaldaea, she was able to found her Second 
Empire and to come forward under Nebuchadnezzar as a 
conqueror of the surrounding nations. Assyria, Judaea, 
Phoenicia, even a large part of Egypt, became her vassal 
states; and it was during this brilliant, if brief, period of 
revival that a large number of the Hebrews were led into 
captivity at Babylon and forced to " hang up their harpg 



ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST 17 

in a strange land." In those days, however, her strength 
lay entirely in her military development. Long before the 
end of the sixth century B.C., Babylon had fallen, a helpless 
victim, into the hands of the Persian Cyrus. "Babylon 
is fallen : that great city Babylon." So rang the cry from 
East to West among the nations who had looked so long to 
her as the centre of the learning and civihzation of the earth ; 
for the glory of the ancient world was fast passing away, 
and force was ruling in place of intellect. 

Assyria, the War State — Following a group of high 
turbaned Magi of Chaldsea there appears upon our frieze 
a troop of bearded warriors, fully armed, with limbs large 
and robust, strongly marked features, and expressions not 
devoid of pride and treachery. They are the " fierce people " 
of Assyria, the Land of Warriors, who, within a comparatively 
brief period, had made themselves the conquerors of Western 

Asia 

Assyria, the War State of the Ancient World, is remark- 
able for the comparative swiftness of her rise and fall as an 
Empire. Up to the ninth century before Christ she scarcely 
counted among the nations of the known world. By the 
middle of the seventh century B.C. she had fallen to pieces 
before the rise of the second Empire of Babylon. 

Yet within those two hundred years she had become a 
great World Empire, the terror of Babylon, Syria, and Canaan, 
the conqueror of the League of the Nations of Phoenicia, 
Philistia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Judah, had risen to her highest 
point and had fallen to her ruin. 

Economic Position of Assyria— How can this be ac- 
counted for ? Her rapid rise was apparently due to her 
highly developed mihtary system, which for a time enabled 
her to become the conqueror of the vast hordes of Egypt 
and the far more civihzed army of Babylonia. Yet this 
success was very short-Hved. The strength of Assyria de- 
pended on her troops, but these, instead of being conscripted 
from a population weakened by feudal rule, were drawn from 
an active and vigorous peasantry and a free people. As 
long as the national spirit of Assyria survived, so long did 



18 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

her Empire last. But constant warfare is no wholesome food 
even for a nation bred on the battlefield, and her national 
army, worn out by yearly campaigns, gradually disappeared 
in favour of troops of mercenaries. Moreover, when the 
Assyrians conquered Babylonia, and removed the trade 
centre of the East from Babylon to Nineveh, they were 
preparing their own downfall. The militant spirit on which 
their very life depended was smothered by the civilization 
of the country of their adoption. The Assyrians them- 
selves lost their unity, and two parties arose within the Empire 
even at the height of its success. The nobles, adopting the 
feudal spirit of the conquered land, led out each year an army 
composed of mercenary troops ; the " temple " class, the 
priests and townspeople, held aloof. Meantime the old free 
peasant class became almost extinct, and the Empire was 
divided up into great landed estates owned by nobles and 
worked by slaves. The army itself under these conditions 
was bound to go forth on periodical expeditions of plunder, 
since its only means of support was the booty obtained by 
conquest. 

Thus, with an oppressed and insignificant peasantry, an 
army clamouring for frequent warfare, and a city class un- 
fairly free from taxation and in the hands of the " temple " 
caste, the Assyrians possessed within their Empire all the 
seeds of weakness and approaching ruin. Their treatment 
of their subject states shows their real weakness as Empire 
builders. If a king paid tribute he was free to administer 
his land, but that land must furnish troops for Assyria. If 
he were oppressed in his weakness by a neighbour state, he 
could not count on his Assyrian overlord for help of any 
kind. As a consequence, all parts of the loosely held Empire 
were in constant revolt. 

If a state were completely conquered, as in the case of 
Samaria, the land was confiscated and the conquered people 
were sent to distant parts of the Empire, where, as new- 
comers, they would not be likely to rebel, and where their 
tribal customs and systems would be broken up. Thus we 
find on several occasions that the people of Samaria were 



ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST 19 

exiled to Mesopotamia, the Jews to Babylonia, Babylonians 
to Samaria. The result was a condition of destruction and 
desolation, while the conquering country lived upon the 
resources of the conquered. 

Then Nemesis fell upon them. With no united people, 
no settled administration, the Ass5n:ians could not hold an 
Empire that was kept together by an army of paid soldiers 
and by the variable rule of a class of self-seeking nobles. For 
a time they existed as a kind of " robber state," descending 
upon and crushing smaller nations. But they were really so 
rotten at the core that, when the Chaldsean Empire rose upon 
the ruins of Ancient Babylon, the Assyrians were merged 
within it and, as an individual nation, almost disappeared. 

Assyrian Architecture and Art — ^Traces of this swamping 
by the conquered state are seen even in the architecture of 
Assyria. As is always the case when a powerful and wealthy 
monarch comes to the fore, the palaces of the Golden Age 
of Assyria were numerous and finely built. But although 
the country possessed ample stores of marble and alabaster 
in her mountain ranges, she copied Babylonia slavishly in 
the use of bricks, though she covered them with slabs of 
stone. The pictures which adorn these slabs show the glory of 
the campaigns of Tiglath Pileser, of Sargon and Sennacherib. 
In a bas-relief now in the British Museum we see the latter 
king seated upon the royal chair that formed part of his 
camp accoutrements, in front of a captured city. The in- 
scription tells us that ** Sennacherib, the king of legions, king 
of Assyria, sat upon an upright thi-one, and the spoil of the 
city passed before him." 

The capture of such a city was accompanied by terrible 
cruelties. Children were burnt alive, and conquered foes were 
impaled on stakes over the city gates. 

Almost the only glimpse we have of civilian life in this 
warrior state is one of vast numbers of slaves employed 
in building, and using rollers and ropes and levers for the 
columns and huge stone figures. We also see the nobles, 
with their stiffly curled hair and long tasselled gowns, sitting 
at their banquets with their feet dangling from high stools. 



20 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

They used dishes of alabaster and bronze and drank from 
cups of elaborate shapes, but their designs are entirely lacking 
in imagination and originality. Their one idea of developing 
it was to repeat a type on an enlarged scale. Hence their 
enormous winged bulls and exaggeratedly colossal figures. 
Their chief ideal of beauty lay in costly and ornamental 
wearing apparel, as can be seen in most of the wall pictures 
in the Empire's best days. 

The Medes and Persians — In the last years of the seventh 
century B.C. Nineveh fell before the onslaught of a wild 
Scythian race known as the " Manda," or Medes; and after 
the brief revival of the Babylonian monarchy, it was these 
same tribes, in alhance with the armies of Persia, that finally 
overthrew this ancient stronghold of civilization. 

With the approach of Persia a new spirit of virile 
life blew through the worn-out systems of Western Asia. 
For Persia, through her conquest of Asia Minor, had touched 
Greek civihzation, and had been infected with that mar- 
vellous vitality which was the characteristic of the Greek. 
She appeared first upon the scene of history as a vigorous, 
though uncivilized nation, apt for rapid conquest, but with 
no elements of strength in her own organization to enable 
her to hold what she had won. 

For about two hundred years the Persians played a lurid 
part upon the stage of human life ; then, save for a wonder- 
ful and deathless literature, they passed from the scene for 
many a long day. On our frieze of history we see them 
portrayed as a group of horsemen, without armour and carry- 
ing only a short sword, bow, and lance, riding with free and 
gallant air through their mountain passes. Their Shah 
wears a high stiff cap, fiat at top and round, to distinguish 
him from his nobles, and, Hke them, a long and flowing gown 
known as the " Median garment." In the background stands 
his gorgeous palace, the floors of which are beautifully 
coloured stone covered with richly woven carpets. Pillars of 
ivory support silken hangings of violet, white, and green, 
upon which hang plates of gold. A golden vine, whose grapes 
are priceless jewels, hangs over the bed of the king, and he 



ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST 21 

washes his hands in a bowl of gold. No woman is seen among 
them, for these were kept in the strictest seclusion. If a man 
happened to pass on the road a litter containing one of the 
king's wives, even though she were hidden behind the closed 
curtains, he was liable to instant execution. 

Early Traditions of Persia — ^The delightful legends 
which form the bulk of the national literature, telling the 
story of Kaiomurs, that " King of the World," of Shah 
Djemsheed, who first taught his people the use of iron and the 
art of weaving in silk and wool, above all of the hero Rustem 
and the fair youth Sohrab, his unknown son, all paint 
the early story of Persia as the land of a vigorous, partially 
civilized people of Aryan race, scorning the wily astuteness 
of the Semite, hospitable and kind to the stranger, free and 
open in speech. 

Their singularly beautiful and spiritual form of Nature- 
worship, full of poetry and imagination, was crystallized 
into a definite faith by the wise Magus Zoroaster, probably 
some ten centuries before the Christian era. The power of 
Light was their God, whose eye was the Sun, whose child was 
Fire, who sent the sacred rain upon the parched earth " well- 
forded and full-flowing," Closely connected with this Sky- 
God was Mithra, the Daylight, " a warrior with a silver helm, 
a golden cuirass, who kills with the poniard strong and valiant ; 
the warrior of the white horse." 

In the face of this light, the Persians knew there could exist 
neither falsehood nor deceit. " Those who lie unto Mithra, 
however swift they may be running, cannot outrun him ; 
riding, cannot outride him ; driving, cannot outdrive him." 
For their love of truth they were as noted as for their courage 
and energy, and even the Shah himself was bound never to 
break a promise or to change an order ; the fame of the " Law 
of the Medes and Persians which altereth not " went forth 
into all lands. 

Early Civilization o£ Persia — In the days before their 
historical Empire was established, the Persians seem to have 
been divided into four classes : priests, warriors, traders, and 
husbandmen. Of these, the last were by no means the least 



22 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

in repute. " They render homage to no one ; they labour, 
they sow, they harvest, and are nourished in the fields of 
the earth without injury to anyone. They are subject to the 
orders of none, although their clothes are humble ; and 
their ear is never struck by the clamour of slander. They 
are free, and the tillage of the earth is their right ; they 
have no enemies ; they have no quarrels." 

We have here all the elements of a sound and enduring 
economic existence, yet we find, as a fact, that the whole 
history of the rise and fall of Persia took place within little 
more than two hundred years (c. 553-333 B.C.), that is, it had 
about the same duration as that of the Assyrian Empire. 

Rise and Fall of the Persian Empire (553-333 B.C.)— The 
reason for its comparative brevity was not quite the same, 
however, as in the case of the former. We have seen that 
the craze for an empire resting entirely on military founda- 
tions was the cause of the downfall of Assyria. In the case 
of Persia, the rise of the Empire was due almost entirely to the 
personal devotion of the nobles to Cyrus, the grandson of the 
legendary Kai Kaoos of Persian epic. The career of this 
prince at the head of only partially civilized hordes of mounted 
nomads was one great series of victories. Lydia, ruled by 
Croesus, with all her fabulous wealth, and Babylonia with all 
her tributary states, fell before his fierce onrush, before he was 
laid to rest in his royal palace at Pasargad. Two hundred 
years later the Greeks found his body encased in a golden 
coffin and bearing the inscription : 

" O man, I am Cyrus, who won domination for the Persians 
and was their king. Grudge not this monument, then, to me. " 

Personal devotion is not an enduring foundation for 
Empire-building, and it was from a condition of utter con- 
fusion that Darius, some years after the death of Cyrus, began 
to raise the country into a firmly established kingdom. The 
first task of Darius was to reduce the revolting territories, once 
conquered by his predecessor, and then to hold them in sub- 
jection. This he did by establishing the same kind of govern- 
ment in all parts of the Empire and by placing it in the hands 
of " satraps," independent governors, held in check by royal 



ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST 23 

eommissioners. Instead of vexatiously uncertain demands 
for tribute, a fixed annual taxation was set up. Good roads 
and excellent "caravanserai/' or inns, made travelling com- 
paratively easy even across an Empire that soon stretched 
from the Indus to the Steppes of Russia, and from the northern 
waters of the iEgean Sea to the Nile. 

Yet already the second cause of Persia's downfall was 
at work. The Persians, by their temperament, very easily 
acquired the culture and atmosphere of the conquered nations 
amongst whom they lived, and quickly lost the special 
characteristics springing from a free and vigorous outdoor 
life. The Persian became more luxurious than the Baby- 
lonian, more ambitious of military empire than the Assyrian ; 
and by the year 479 B.C. the Empire fell before the rising 
power of Greece and the strength of Alexander of Macedon. 
Not the defeat of Marathon, which was, after all, probably 
confined to the Persian troops stationed in Asia Minor ; not 
the loss of the famous bodyguard of Xerxes, his Ten Thousand 
Immortals, in Greece, a country whose mountains were its best 
allies ; not the destruction of a fleet unused to maritime 
warfare at the hands of the quickly mobilized and seafaring 
nation of the Greeks, were the real causes of the downfall. 
We may doubt indeed whether Susa, the royal capital, heard 
very much of these disasters. 

The actual causes were, as we have seen, the failure of 
Persia to develop an independent civilization, or to main- 
tain her own characteristics before the stifling weight of the 
outworn and effete culture of. Middle Asia ; and the unwieldy 
" satrapies " ruled by viceroys with despotic power, by 
means of huge armies maintained by constant warfare and 
the booty that it brought in. The latter days of the 
Empire saw the effect of Greek influence upon the im- 
pressionable Persian. The enrolment of thousands of 
Greek mercenaries, under the leadership of another Cyrus, 
transformed the military spirit of the nation. But already 
the end was approaching, and before the hardy onslaught of 
the Macedonian Alexander the whole of the Empire of 
Western Asia fell. 



24 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

But though her Ancient Empire disappeared, Persia 
still lived in her literature, in the epics of her race. Some 
thirteen centuries later the Persian poet Firdusi collected these 
early sagas under the name of the Shah Nameh or Book of 
Kings, of the subject of which poems he justly wrote : 
"These are the heroes whose glory I have restored. They 
are passed long ago, but my song has awakened them to 
eternal life." 

The Legacy of Persia to the World — A deathless literature 
was not the only contribution of Ancient Persia to the progress 
of civilization. She was one of the first nations of the world 
to set up a high standard of honour, even in dealing with her 
foes ; and, though she was not sufficiently creative to develop 
an independent civilization on her own lines, the lively, quick- 
witted character of her people, and their love of poetry and art, 
showed a marked advance on the unoriginal and unimagina- 
tive ideas of the Egyptian and Assyrian. The country, 
too, under the influence of Babylon, was the home of all kinds 
of curious learning ; and the priestly class were the Magi, 
keepers of the sacred law and ancestors of that body of wise 
men versed in strange lore, who are known as Magicians. 

Phoenicia, the Carrier of Nations — ^There now appear upon 
our frieze of history two groups of people who represent the 
smaller nations which followed Egypt, Babylon, and Persia in 
the crash of Empires under the onslaught of Alexander the 
Macedonian. The first of these represents Phoenicia, the 
Land of the Merchant Carriers, masters, until the Greeks 
appeared as their rivals, of the trade of the Mediterranean. 
We see them as men of a Semitic type, busily at work trim- 
ming the sails of their ships, extracting their famous purple dye 
from the shellfish on their coasts, plying their caravan trade 
from the city of Damascus, whence diverged the great com- 
mercial roads of the world. 

Phoenicia, which at one period comprised Syria and 
Palestine, was a little nation, with a civilization borrowed 
from Egypt or Babylon. Its famous cities of Tyre and Sidon 
were not much larger than a London square, and their harbours 
were able to contain only a very few vessels. Yet by her 



ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST 25 

position on the highway between Egypt and Mesopotamia, 
between Greece and Assyria, Phoenicia was the centre of the 
great caravan routes which passed from Egypt to Mesopo- 
tamia, Babylon and Persia. From her own land stepped long 
lines of camels laden with the glass vessels and mirrors for 
which Sidon was famed, with the purple cloth of Tyre, with 
the sword blades and metal work of Damascus ; and East and 
West she sent the sweet -smelling cedar wood from her forests of 
Lebanon. Her city Tyre, rising up at the " entry of the sea," 
was a " merchant of the people for many isles," and was for 
centuries the carrier of the whole of the trade of the Medi- 
terranean. She was the first of any nation to develop a fear- 
less spirit of adventure and discovery, the first to venture on 
her light, well-built ships to explore the " Western Sea," to 
sail round Africa, to touch the shores of India, Spain, and even 
far-off Britain. This fearless trust of themselves to wind 
and wave, in an age when the unknown was full of terror, was 
one of the most marked characteristics of the Phoenicians. 
Another was their ability, without loss of their own individ- 
uality, to adapt themselves to the character of the widely 
differing nations with whom their trade brought them into 
contact. 

Thus we find the jealous and exclusive Egyptians granting 
them not only many commercial advantages, but even a 
settlement and a temple in the land of Egypt. They were on 
friendly terms with the haughty Assyrians and Chaldseans, 
who afforded them free passage from the Mediterranean to 
the Persian Gulf, and treated them, even when they became 
their conquerors, with respect and consideration. 

The Persians, too, did all they could to encourage their 
prosperity, more especially as Persia depended upon their 
skill as shipwrights for her fleet ; and the Greeks, though their 
rivals in trade, frankly acknowledged their superiority in 
respect of shipbuilding. 

Phoenician Characteristics — Yet, in spite of their acuteness 
in commerce, the Phoenicians were a dreamy, philosophic, and 
religious people. Their cities grew up round their temples ; 
their merchant ships carried the figure of a god at the prow. 



26 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

The myths of Babylon and Egypt became more poetical and 
spiritual in their hands, although they had strangely little 
belief in a future life for the soul of man. 

The Influence of Phoenicia on Civilization — By their high 
ideals of art and the excellence of their handiwork they 
wielded a profound influence upon the many half-civilized 
nations with whom they came into contact. They shared w^ith 
Egypt the reputation of being the first workers in glass ; 
they modified and modernized the alphabetical writing in- 
vented by the Chaldseans, and handed it on to Asia Minor, 
Greece, and Italy. They were famous for their fine metal work. 
We read in the pages of Homer how when Achilles, at the 
funeral of Patroclus, offered, as a prize to the runners, the 
most perfectly shaped bowl in the world, it was one made and 
chased at Sidon and brought to him by Phoenician seamen, that 
he chose ; and the robe stiff with embroidery and " shining 
with the brightness of a star," which Hecuba offered to Athens, 
was the work of Phoenician needlewomen. 

To this people also is due the glory of the Temple of 
Solomon, the decoration of which was the work of Hiram, 
" a man of Tyre, skilled to work in gold and in silver, in 
brass, in iron, in stone and in timber, in purple, in blue and 
in fine linen, and in crimson ; also to grave any manner of 
graving." 

The Siege of Tyre — The siege of Tyre by Alexander is one 
of the marvels of history. When the sea-girt city found that her 
sister town, Sidon, had submitted to the World Conqueror, she 
at first bowed to fate and sent a polite message by her chief 
men, offering her submission. Alexander received it graciously, 
and informed the messengers that he intended to enter the 
island city and there to sacrifice to the Phoenician god Mel- 
karth, whom he claimed as ancestor. But the Tyrians saw 
in this a proposal to occupy their free city which had never 
known a foreign garrison, and replied shortly that if he wished 
to sacrifice to Melkarth he could do so in the temple upon the 
opposite shore. This intimation was greeted by a storm of 
fury from the Conqueror, who declared that, if they would not 
open their gates to him, he would break them down. 



ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST 27 

So hostilities began ; and Tyre, safe in her fleet and sea- 
washed walls, looked down undismayed upon the approaching 
foe. But before long she began to realize only too well the 
resources of Alexander. A huge causeway was in process of 
construction, and, even if it were washed away by friendly 
waves, there were always thousands of workmen ready to 
reconstruct it. Then the Tyrian fleet, like the Elizabethan 
ships in Armada days, fitted up fire ships filled with burning 
tar and sulphur and kindled the wooden towers and mole into 
a blaze. A gale fanned the flames, and the whole mass of 
flaring stuff was washed away by a huge sea. Immediately 
Alexander ordered the work to be again begun. Whole trees 
were now used as the groundwork ; and in return the un- 
daunted Tyrians sent divers to drag out the trunks with hooks, 
which caused the structure to collapse. 

Then Alexander tried a new plan. He prevailed on the 
Sidonians to send him vessels ; he borrowed a large and well- 
equipped fleet from the Prince of Cyprus ; and with these he 
surrounded the mouth of the harbour, shutting up the Tyrian 
vessels and besieging the town both from the sea and from the 
rapidly renewed causeway. Even then the Tyrians held out. 
Their little boats slipped under the big galleys and cut the 
mooring cables, so that chains had to be substituted ; they 
lowered blocks of stone as bulwarks against the battering 
rams ; they hid their vessels behind sails and, rowing noiselessly 
out, made a sudden rush upon the fleet, which almost met with 
the success it deserved. Even when Alexander arrived with 
reinforcements, the sailors would not capitulate, but threw 
themselves into the water and swam back to the city. 

Finally, at the walls a most desperate defence was made 
before Alexander in person, with his Macedonian troops, 
could make an entrance ; and the savage nature of the Con- 
queror was seen under his veneer of civilization in the fact 
that he had every man killed and thirty thousand women 
and children sold as slaves. 

So the greatness of Phoenicia came to an end, leaving 
behind a reputation due, not, as in the case of other kingdoms 
of the Ancient World, to conquest and political domination, 



28 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

but to the independence, enterprise, and commercial skill of 
her people. 

The People of the Hebrews — ^The next group of Eastern 
people which appears upon the frieze stands apart in one 
sense from the other nations of the Ancient World. The 
strongly marked features are familiar to us of modern days ; 
for though the Jews have lost their country and wander 
through all other lands as exiles, they keep the characteristics 
of their race, and are to-day the same mystical poets, the same 
keen financiers, the same passionate patriots, as in the days 
of old. 

The proud isolation of this People of the Hebrews, 
or Jews, as we call them to-day, is due to the fact that 
they represent the " Chosen People," selected out of all the 
nations of the earth to be trained to carry out a Divine 
ideal. Their history must be read in detail elsewhere ; it 
is recorded more fully than that of any other race in the 
pages of the Old Testament, and we can but glance for an 
instant at it in this connexion. 

As the family of a pastoral chieftain, then as a small tribe, 
they passed the infancy of their race as the slaves of an 
Egyptian usurper. Rapidly their number increased ; they 
returned to their native land, fought for it, cultivated it, and 
quickly acquired a position of wealth and trade prosperity. 
They were overthrown by the mighty power of Assyria, but 
rallied again, to be reconquered by Alexander and later on by 
Rome. Their city Jerusalem, " beloved of the whole earth," 
fell before the Roman army, and they were scattered homeless 
over the wide world. A curse fell on their nation, the result 
of a Great Refusal, of a rejection of the realization of the ideal 
towards which their forefathers had blindly stumbled. 

Hebrew Influence on Civilization — But they have contri- 
buted at least one priceless element to the march of civiliza- 
tion. They were the one nation of the Ancient World whose 
instinct was always strong for righteousness, whose moral 
standard was exalted, whose respect for law was unbounded. 
The legal codes of modern nations are based upon the Ten 
Commandments of the Hebrews ; no higher can be found. 



ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST 29 

They were, moreover, unique in another respect. When 
other nations worshipped many personifications of deities of 
one kind or another, the Hebrew set before himself the ideal 
of the One God, and followed the divine revelation as closely 
as he might, in spite of frequent fallings away under the 
influence of other nations. From his faith in a divine 
Fatherhood followed his belief in a universal brotherhood of 
man. This fact alone, apart from the position of Palestine 
as the cradle of Christendom, makes her people remarkable 
among all the races of East or West. 



EXERCISES 

1. Say what you think is the most interesting and character- 
istic feature of each of the Ancient Empires of the East. 

2. Show in the case of any two of these Empires that their 
downfall was due, not to military, but to economic causes. 

3. What has been the legacy left to the world respectively by 
Egypt, Babylon, Assjnia, Persia, Phoenicia, Judaea ? 



CHAPTER III 

THE FAR EAST : 
CHINA, INDIA 

DURING the centuries that saw the rise and fall of 
the Empires of Western Asia and the growth of the 
vigorous younger nations of Europe, there existed in 
curious isolation and monotony an Empire of the Far 
East, much greater in size and number of inhabitants than any 
of those of which we have been reading. Yet the Empire of 
China played no part in the drama of Ancient History as far 
as influence or interaction with other nations is concerned. 
She came into touch with India only at a comparatively late 
date, and with the people of the West not till the thirteenth 
century of the Christian era ; and then only to a very slight 
extent. Yet her position is decidedly interesting, for she is 
the only kingdom which has existed without a break from 
ancient to modern times. Almost untouched by the thought 
and faiths of the West, lending a polite ear to the less distant 
voices of India and Japan, she kept her administration, her 
education, her moral code practically unchanged until the 
end of the last century. An air of mystery and remoteness 
overshadowed her and invested her with a splendour not 
always based on solid fact. For, as though in remote ages 
strict limits had been set to her development, the land of 
China seemed doomed to consist of a vast, showy, magnificently 
huge domain, whose people were unprogressive, stereotyped, 
and almost entirely incapable of adapting themselves to 
modern developments. 

Yet up to a certain point China seems to have made more 
than ordinary progress towards civilization. She is supposed 

to have known how to make gunpowder at a very early period ; 

30 



THE FAR EAST 81 

but she did not discover its use in warfare till it was explained 
by foreigners in the fifteenth century A.D. She was famous 
for her porcelain, lacquer-ware, and enamel, and beautiful 
silk, in the early days of Rome. She knew the secret of 
bronze-founding, suspension bridges, dykes, and marvellous 
temple-building twelve hundred years before the Christian era. 
She knew the use of the compass at a very remote period, 
and how to print from wooden blocks at least five hundred 
years before the days of Caxton and his Westminster Press ; 
and the use of coal and gas for heating was familiar to her 
at a period long before the Anglo-Saxon had dreamed of 
anything but a log fire. 

The early story of the nation is dim with mystery. It 
has been conjectured that the Chinese were akin to the first 
inhabitants of Ancient Chaldaea, that they were a Sumerian 
tribe which migrated across Central Asia to the Far East. 
There they settled among Mongolian tribes, bringing with 
them the customs of their old home, already half forgotten 
in the process of changing from a nomad to an agricultural 
people. The effect of climate, and of intermarriage with an 
alien race, may have left them content with a state of 
intellectual stagnation that yet had reached a very fairly 
advanced stage ; so that we find them learned in astronomy, 
but ignorant of the use of a telescope, and deeply interested 
in art without knowing how to draw in perspective. 

The history of China is centred in her kings. No priestly 
class divided honours with the ruler ; her records deal only 
with the achievements of kings who were popularly supposed 
to be the teachers of their people in the arts of civilization. 
Thus one king instituted the marriage system, taught how to 
fish and how to play the lute and lyre, invented the curious 
hieroglyphics of Chinese handwriting. Another explained the 
secret of the plough and all the arts of agriculture. Under 
his rule the people grew wise in mind and sound in body, for 
he showed them how to use bitter herbs as medicine. The 
image of this Shen-nung or " Prince of Cereals " may still 
be seen, sometimes in the act of chewing a herb leaf, in every 
Chinese chemist's shop. Another king invented a calendar 



32 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

and a method of reckoning time which is still in use. He also 
made instruments of music, and others for the study of 
astronomy. His wife is said to have discovered the use of 
the silkworm for the good of man, and to have laid the 
foundation of the famous trade in Chinese silk. 

In spite, however, of these apparent strides towards pro- 
gress in civilization, the bulk of the great population remained 
in a curious condition of mingled superstition and ignorance, 
caring for little else than bodily ease and comfort, bowing 
contentedly under the iron rule of a despot, and governed by 
a feudal system which crushed the individuality of the people 
and prevented any real advance. For centuries their only 
religion was a blind king-worship, and not until the end of 
the seventh century B.C., when Rome was struggling out of 
obscurity, did the two great thinkers appear who were destined 
to influence the whole character of the Chinese people. 

They belonged to two opposite schools of thought. 
Laotse's system of "Taoism" was philosophical and mystical ; 
the Tao, or Logos, was the unseen Word of God, for which 
man is for ever searching; and a code of precepts for the 
attainment of true virtue was laid down by him. But this 
quickly degenerated into a system of alchemy and magic, 
and became thickly overgrown with rank superstition. 
Confucius, on the other hand, was a social reformer, who 
revived the religion of past days and grafted upon it a system 
of practical moral reforms that closely touched the daily life 
of the people. He soon outri vailed the claims of Laotse, 
and, like Socrates in Greece, gathered round him a band of 
ardent pupils who followed him from place to place, hanging 
upon his words. As a high official of State he brought about 
many reforms ; but a wave of jealousy on the part of the 
great nobles obtained his dismissal, and he became a homeless 
wanderer and exile. From court to court of the feudal 
overlords he wandered with his " school " ©f young followers, 
often sorely distressed at the miserable lot of the people of his 
land. Thus one day he came across a woman in a deserted 
place weeping bitterly because her father, husband, and only 
son had been killed at that spot by a tiger. 



THE FAR EAST 33 

" Why then do you stay in this dangerous spot ? " asked 
Confucius ; and the woman replied : 

" Because here, and here alone, there is no oppressive 

government." 

" My sons," said the prophet, turning to his followers, 
" remember this— oppressive government is fiercer even than 

Confucius died in 478 B.C., old and weary and disappomted. 
"No wise ruler appears," was his moan, "no one desires my 
advice ; it is time for me to die." 

After his death there rose up an Emperor, Hwang-h, 
who made himself despotic ruler of all the States of China. 
Fearing lest the more educated people, swayed by the teach- 
ing of the seer, should rebel, he ordered all written books save 
those on medicine and astronomy to be destroyed. 

So for a time Confucius was forgotten, while this man, the 
real founder of the Chinese Empire, won glory by his success 
in driving out the Tartar invaders from his western frontiers, 
and by building the " Great Wall of China " to protect his 
country from outside foes. Yet still the people groaned 
under his iron hand, and under a criminal code that bathed 

the land in blood. 

During the Han dynasty, which followed, a real attempt 
was made to restore the literature of the country, and it was 
then that from hiding-places in ground and waUs and roofs 
were produced ancient books and writings of the philosopher, 
which had been carefully treasured and hidden since the days 
of Confucius. Within the next two centuries China actually 
became famous for her libraries, and " Confucianism " became 
an accepted form of faith. 

Still, however, the great mass of the people remained 
untouched, and knew nothing of religion, until envoys, sent 
westward in search of a " Great Teacher," returned with 
a Buddhist priest who taught the faith of Buddha. The 
influence of Buddhism on the civihzation of China was marked. 
Soon an alphabet took the place of the extraordinary mono- 
syllabic language and writing, and a large number of literary 
works[^appeared. 
"3 



34 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

During all these centuries China, shut off by her great wall 
and her high mountain ranges, played no part in the drama 
of Western Asia. Here and there we find a mention of her. 
The Persians speak of the Eastern people who dwell beyond 
the Sun-setting. Phoenicians and Hebrews knew of " Sinim," 
and Rome valued their silks and described them somewhat 
vaguely as " dwellers in a vast and populous country, touching 
on the East the Ocean and the limits of the habitable world 
. . . civilized men, of mild, just, and frugal temper ; avoiding 
collisions with their neighbours and shy of close intercourse, 
but not averse from disposing of their own products, which 
include silk stuffs, furs, and iron of remarkable quality." 

Early in the seventh century after Christ a Mongol 
dynasty was set up under the famous Genghis Khan, 
" Conqueror of the World," and this to some extent broke 
down the isolation of China. The appearance of Catholic 
priests and the introduction of Christianity brought another 
and very different wave of thought from the Western World ; 
while the visit of the traveller, Marco Polo, in the thirteenth 
century, roused for the first time in civilized Europe an 
interest in these Eastern people. 

Yet China, in her halting march on the road of progress, 
profited little, during the next six hundred years, by her inter- 
course with the outside world ; and when in 1894 the attempt 
of Japan to annex Korea brought her into contact with modern 
forms of warfare, she was hopelessly defeated. The " anti- 
foreign " outrages of a section called the Boxers formed the 
last attempt to restore her former splendid isolation. 
Terrible as was the result of this, in the wholesale murder of 
traders and missionaries, it did something to check the move- 
ment towards the partition of China among European robbers, 
and to rouse the conscience of the West. But the most striking 
effect of Europe's attempt to prey upon China is seen in the 
national awakening to the sense of the need of marching with 
the times if the land were to remain a power. How this was 
brought about belongs to the story of the Modern World. 
How far the most conservative nation in the world will pursue 
this march is one of the problems of history. 



THE FAR EAST 35 

India — Midway between the Yellow Men and the people 
of Western Asia there stands portrayed upon our frieze a 
group of men who show at least three different types of race. 

These are Indians, and among them we find the man of 
mixed Mongol, Chinese, and Hindu blood ; another of the pure, 
dark-skinned type, which is probably the original Dra vidian 
race, small, black, and broad of nose ; and the comparatively 
white-skinned Aryan, with his well-modelled features. 

The Aryan, of course, was the invader, and as usual spread 
himself over the land at the expense of the aborigines. But 
the latter are found even now in mountain and jungle, small 
of stature, but big of soul, fearless, courageous, and noted for 
their honour and fidelity. The arrow of an absent chieftain 
of their tribe, given by his wife to an English traveller, ensured 
him hospitality and security among all the members of this 
wild race. While they were yet living in the days of old under 
trees or rocks, clad in aprons of grass and decked with neck- 
laces and bracelets, the invading Aryan race, originally 
nomads, were settling in the Punjaub as cattle breeders and 
farmers, living on milk and corn, in houses roofed with vege- 
table fibre or tree bark. Their women cooked and spun and 
fashioned the finest of fur cloaks from the skins of slain beasts. 
Very early pictures show the smith blowing up the fire with a 
feather fan, the goldsmith making bracelets and rings. Even 
their language shows their pastoral character. They call a 
battle " desire for cows," and their word for chieftain means 
" possessor of oxen." Their standard of morality was high. 
A man had but one wife and made her his equal. At the 
marriage feast the bridegroom led the bride three times 
round her parents' hearth, and then, having carried her home 
in a cart drawn by white steers, three times round his own ; 
after this, the meal was held in common with the relatives and 
guests. 

At first the settlers lived in groups of villages, which 
gradually developed into districts ruled by a chief. The 
election of a king was in the hands of an assembly of " arm- 
bearing " men, which also discussed questions of war and peace. 
The king represented the people before the gods, but might 



36 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

himself be represented by an official of poetic gifts and high 
dignity, and this latter was the forerunner of the priest caste. 

Literature of India : The Rig-Veda — India has no actual 
history till the so-called " conquest " of Alexander in 327 B.C. 
It is from her remarkable literature that we construct the 
picture of her past. The first compilation of her national 
poetry, the Rig-Veda, was made about 1400 B.C. It is a 
collection of short poems which show perhaps as many of the 
characteristics of the Hindu race as the Western mind will 
ever grasp. From it we find the growth of the Four " Castes " 
or classes. We see how in the earliest times every head of a 
household, or chief, was also a priest, warrior, and husbandman. 
Gradually the more intellectual members of the family, 
especially those who composed or recited the " Vedic " 
hymns, were dedicated to the priestly office and became 
Brahmins, of the most sacred caste of all. The Brahmin was 
" chief of all created things ; the world and all in it are his " ; 
all manner of protection, legal and moral, hedged him in. 
Yet he himself was trained most strictly, passing the first part 
of his life in poverty and abstinence and in study of the 
Sacred Vedas. He lived by hard manual toil or by begging 
from his neighbours. In the second period of his life he might 
marry and share in ordinary family life, while keeping close 
to the high ideal of his caste. Thus he must take no gift 
from " low-born, wicked, or unworthy persons " ; and though 
he might dig, sow, and glean on his own account, he must not 
take service of any kind. His demeanour must be at all times 
grave and reserved ; " he must wear his hair and beard clipped, 
his passions must be subdued, his mantle white, and his body 
pure." 

The third part of his life was spent as a hermit in the woods. 
Wearing the skin of a black antelope, with uncut hair and nails, 
he slept on the bare earth " without fire, without a mansion, 
wholly silent, living on roots and fruit." He must bear 
exposure to weather of all kinds, and meantime redouble his 
ardour for his religious duties. Only in his later years was 
this iron rule relaxed, and the Brahmin, having learnt endur- 
ance, might live with serene mind, meditating upon the 



THE FAR EAST 37 

hidden mysteries of his faith, until the time came to quit 
the body " as a bird leaves the branches of a tree at its 
pleasure." 

The influence of men trained after this fashion was enor- 
mous. All law-making was necessarily in their hands, since 
they alone might interpret the ancient code. Only the higher 
castes might venture to give them means of support, and these 
were anxious for the privilege ; so that the Brahmins very 
seldom need work for their living. The religion taught by 
them was a very imaginative nature-worship, which saw in the 
deities Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, three manifestations of the 
One Supreme Being. 

From the mouth of Brahma was said to spring the Brahmin 
caste, born to command and teach ; from his arms the 
militant caste, for action and defence ; from his thighs the 
merchant, whose chief office was to support the priestly class ; 
and from his feet the low caste folk who were bound to run to 
and fro at the command of others. But the favourite deities 
were — not Brahma — ^but Vishnu, the Preserver, and Siva, the 
Destroyer and Reproducer of Life, 

The military caste, to which belonged the king and his 
ministers, held the people by force of arms, while the Brahmin 
ruled them by spiritual powers. Theirs was the work of 
defence, of offering sacrifices, of giving alms, and of studying 
the sacred books, but not of interpreting them. Members of 
the third caste, to which belonged the merchant, tradesman, 
and industrial population, were also allowed to give alms, offer 
sacrifices, and read the " Scriptures," but their chief duty was 
to trade, breed cattle, cultivate the soil, and lend money to the 
needy. 

The people of the " servile " or lowest caste, generally non 
Aryan serfs of mixed races, were ranked far below the rest. 
They might not even mention the Sacred Names, nor have the 
Vedas read in their presence. They might not become wealthy, 
nor might they share their own wretched food with a Brahmin, 
even though the latter were starving. The penalty for put- 
ting them to death was the same as that for killing a cat, a 
frog, or a lizard. 



38 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

The " rule of life " drawn up for these " castes " throws 
much light upon the economic condition of the Hindu people. 
That which governed the militant caste more especially 
portrays a noble and generous-hearted race. 

No man might use poisoned arrows ; life must always be 
granted to an unarmed or a wounded man, and to one who had 
broken his weapon or given himself up. A mounted man must 
not kill one on foot ; nor must death ever be dealt to those 
who lie down weary, or who are asleep, or who flee before their 
foes. The religion and laws of a conquered country are not to 
be disturbed ; and at the earliest possible moment a native 
prince is to be restored to the throne of the conquered land 
as a tributary monarch. 

Other regulations found in the Rig- Veda show a humane 
state of society not too usual among the people of the ancient 
world. " Way must be made," says the Sacred Book, " f or a 
man in a wheeled carriage, or above ninety years old, or 
afflicted with disease, or carrying a burden, for a woman, for 
a priest, for a prince, and for a bridegroom." 

In earlier days, as we have seen, the position of women 
was not much inferior to that of men, but under Brahmin rule 
it was distinctly degraded. Yet the wife was to be treated 
kindly, " for where the women are made miserable, the 
family very soon perishes." 

The Mahabharata — ^The history of what we may call 
the Heroic Age of Northern India may be read between the 
lines of two great epic poems of Ancient India. 

The Mahabharata is woven round the fortunes of the House 
of Delhi and tells of the struggle between the rival clans of 
the five Panda vas and the hundred Kauravas in their efforts 
to obtain supremacy. The details of the long feud cannot 
here be told at length, but, in a land where nowadays love 
for animals, especially for dogs, scarcely exists, it is interesting 
to find a curious reminiscence of Northern Europe in the 
tale that tells how the five Pandava princes set out to find 
the gate of heaven, taking with them a favourite hound. 
One after another perished on the long hard road, until at 
length only the eldest prince and the dog survived and 



THE FAR EAST 39 

reached the gate. The prince was given admission at once, but 
declined to enter unless the souls of his dead brethren might 
accompany him. This was granted, but, when he demanded 
also admission for his dog, it was refused. The prince then 
sought the Under World, preferring a place of torment with 
his faithful friend ; but in a brief space it was shown to him 
that he had only been given a test of endurance ; and 
finally both he and his dog were raised to the bliss of heaven. 

The Ramayana sings the story of the House of Oude. 
It describes the youth of Prince Rama and how he won the 
hand of the Princess Sita after he had bent the bow of Siva. 
But Sita was carried off one day, when Rama was absent 
hunting in the jungle, by Ravana, the demon king, who 
bore her to his kingdom of Ceylon. Then to the aid of the 
distracted Rama came Hanuman and his monkey tribe, 
who built a bridge across to the island, by which Rama 
crossed, slew the demon, and recovered his bride. 

Buddhism (543 B.C.) — As the centuries rolled by, this 
poetical old-world religion of the Hindus became lifeless 
and stifled with superstition. Within it were grave economic 
drawbacks also, for the peasant class, as we have seen, was 
treated with contempt, and the distinctions of caste became 
a heavy burden upon the people. So, in the sixth century 
B.C., there appeared a great teacher, Prince Gautama, or 
''Buddha," the Enlightened One, who became the Reformer 
of his age. - The poetic legend of his spiritual progress must 
be read elsewhere ; the effects of the doctrines he taught are 
all that can be noted here. 

The task of Buddha was to help the afflicted and to 
carry a message of hope to the " out -caste," the beggar, 
the sick, and the miserable. Wandering over the face of 
the earth, he looked upon the sheep and the goat bound for 
the sacrifice and bade the priest loose the victim for ever. 
He listened to the moan of a mother over her dead babe, and, 
promising her a remedy if she could procure a mustard seed 
from a household from which none had been carried out 
for burial, taught her the lesson of endurance and patience. 
He spoke to men of the value of life and of the friendship 



40 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

that should reign between animal and man, so that hence- 
forth they would not take the life of beasts for food. 

So within a comparatively brief period a great change 
came over those who had embraced the religion of Buddha. 
Caste distinctions began to be broken down, for the Buddhist 
priest, who lived a life of strict penance much like that of 
the Catholic monk in Christian days, might be drawn from 
any rank of society. People of the lower castes were treated 
with kindness in place of contempt ; and the doctrine that 
the future life of man depended entirely upon his own actions 
here led to a reformation of morality and the adoption of a 
simple self-denying life. 

In one marked respect, however, the teaching of Buddha 
was not progressive. The position of women was still further 
lowered, and condolences were showered upon the parents 
of a girl child at her birth. She received no education, and 
was married at the age of seven or eight to a boy or to an 
old man whom she had never seen. Her life was one of 
slavery, and during many a year she was burnt alive on the 
funeral pyre of her dead husband. 

Buddhism and Brahminism never displaced one another, 
and continued to flourish side by side through the centuries. 
Once again was this religious and imaginative race to be given 
a new faith, when, in mediaeval days, about one thousand 
years after the birth of our Lord, the followers of Mohammed 
flooded the land with their doctrines. But this belongs to 
the history of a later period ; for, as a matter of fact, the 
actual story of India was not written at all until the time 
of these Arab Conquests in the Middle Ages. 



EXERCISES 

1. What evidence is there of a high degree of civilization in 
Ancient China ? 

2. In what respects is China unique among nations ? 

3. What do you know of Laotse, Confucius, Buddha ? How 
did each of these influence the story of the world ? 



CHAPTER IV 
THE "GLORY OF GREECE" 

(2000-330 B.C.) 

YOU will remember that we found the origins of the 
civilization of the Ancient World in Central Asia. 
If we search for the cradle of the civilization of 
Europe we shall find it in the land now known as 
the Balkan Peninsula, the home of Ancient Greece ; and in 
the islands of the ^Egean Sea. 

Knossos — Discoveries made in comparatively recent 
times have made it clear that at least forty centuries before 
Christ a state of civilization, which reached its highest point 
perhaps about the eighteenth century of that era, existed 
in the island of Crete and its immediate neighbours. At 
Knossos, for example, excavations have shown three palaces 
built one on top of the other, each showing the distinctive 
marks of the age to which it belonged. The lowest evidently 
dates from the Stone Age. The second was built in the days 
of the Ancient Empire of Egypt, from which land Crete 
possibly borrowed its civilization. The third is the most 
astonishing and interesting of all, for it is the very palace of 
King Minos, who was long supposed to be a person of myth and 
fable, and is now proved to have been an actual ruler, probably 
of the days when the Hyksos kings were being thrust out of 
Egypt. Even the Labyrinth of fable is to be found in very 
truth, being an involved arrangement of rooms leading from 
one to the other, and dedicated to a god whose symbol was 
the double axe or labrys. 

This palace has still more surprising features. We find 
in it an elaborate system of architecture, staircases, corridors, 

pillared halls, balconies, frescoed walls — a far higher stage 

41 



42 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

of the building art than is to be found in England before the 
eleventh century of the Christian era. The wall paintings 
show landscapes and seascapes, fruit and flowers, as well 
as the warriors of the early days of pictorial art. Ivory 
statuettes, beautifully cut cameos and chased gold fillets, 
delicately tinted cups of a kind of porcelain as fragile as egg- 
shell, tablets covered with script — all go to prove an advanced 
stage of civilization ; and the possession of a system of 
handwriting, some centuries before the supposed invention 
of the latter by the Phoenicians, is evident. 

Mycense — About the time (1500 B.C.) that saw the be- 
ginnings of the downfall of this civilization of Knossos in 
Crete, we find another flourishing period at Mycenae and 
Tiryns, on the eastern side of the peninsula of Greece. A 
stronghold excavated at Tiryns shows us the work of a people 
who knew the use of mortar and how to shape their stones, 
how to build covered galleries fitted with windows, and cup- 
boards in their walls. The floors were plastered in red and 
blue ; the halls of the palace were lighted from above. 

The palace of Mycenae reaches a higher stage. It shows 
us vaulted passages, towers and gateways, such -as the Lion 
Gate, guarded by enormous lions of stone. The halls and 
passages are decorated with paintings and sculptures ; the 
hearths show a pattern of red, blue, and white tiles. The 
richly decorated tombs, the armour, the leathern helmets 
and shields, the spears and bows, all speak of an advanced 
stage of civilization. Whether this was borrowed from Egypt, 
as seems to be implied by the presence of Egyptian pottery, 
and the finding of the seal of an Egyptian king, and of a 
dagger inlaid with an Egyptian scene upon the blade ; or 
whether this Mycenean civilization existed side by side and 
in close connexion with that of Egypt, matters little. What 
is important is that these inhabitants of Knossos and Mycenae 
and Tiryns were the forefathers of Greece, who, themselves 
unknown to history, handed on the torch of progress to an 
alien race, settlers or conquerors, possibly coming from the 
region of the Carpathian Mountains, who gradually spread 
from the islands of the ^Egean to the coasts of Asia Minor, 



THE " GLORY OF GREECE " 43 

and from Mycenae over Greece, carrying with them their 
newly acquired civiHzation. 

Prehistoric Greece — At Hissarlik, the site of Ancient 
Troy, there was found, in the ruins of the sixth city built 
upon that site, an arch in the Mycenean style. No doubt 
a rapid increase in the population of Mycenae had resulted 
in migrations to the coast of Asia Minor. The Trojan War 
itself, which belongs to the Heroic Age of Greece, was a great 
military expedition of Greek chieftains, and amongst them, 
no doubt, princes of Mycenae journeyed to the Trojan shores 
to fight, as in more recent days, for the possession of the 
Bosphorus and the control of the rich corn-lands of that 
region. Other great city colonies were established in Asia 
Minor by the lonians, another group of Greeks, remarkable 
throughout history for their free, daring, versatile spirit. And 
since these things happened in the days when Assyria held 
Asia Minor well in hand, we get in them a mixture of the 
Assyrian spirit, daring, bold, and overbearing, with the 
culture and rapid civilization of Greece. 

Somewhere in the days before history, another group of 
Greeks, the Dorians, moved southwards, colonized the 
northern part of the Peloponnesus, and caused the fall of 
Mycenge and Tiryns. They were an unlettered race, marked 
off by a peasant spirit of simplicity and ignorance frorn the 
keen intellect, love of beauty, and artistic sense that char- 
acterized the lonians. 

The next stage in the story of Greece shows us the Age 
of Homer, called by some the Age of Heroes, by others the 
Middle Ages of Greece. The old civilization, with its 
Eastern features of elaborate detail and oft-repeated style 
of ornament intermingled with the more natural features 
of the original race, had by this time passed away. 
In its place we find a simpler and more characteristic con- 
dition, on both the social and the artistic side. The land, by 
its geographical formation, was divided into various " states " 
ruled by a patriarch chieftain, who was king, priest, and 
judge of the people. He was advised by a strong council 
of nobles. The great body of freemen were farmers, but 



44 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

physicians, " seers," and poets or " makers " were held in 
high esteem. Such slaves as existed were mostly captives 
taken in war. 

A certain amount of Oriental influence still per- 
sisted in the dress they wore, in the bright Eastern colours, 
the light -fitting patterned robe of the women and the Oriental 
veil covering their cheeks. The latter wore a hood-like cover- 
ing for the head, and the men still kept the pointed wedge- 
shaped beard of the East. But, contrary to the custom of the 
Oriental world, their women were held in high honour. A 
princess, it is true, supervised the washing-tub, and another 
spun the web that clothed her household; but Nausicaa 
and Penelope are the types of the perfect virgin and wife, 
the inspiration of their men-folk, just as in another type, that 
of Helen of Troy, we find one cause of a lifelong conflict 
between the nations. 

The laws of this early race were few and simple. A 
traveller or a beggar might count on food and shelter, 
since strangers and beggars were sent by Zeus ; and a 
fugitive was given protection from his pursuers. The 
actions of this imaginative people were ruled at every point 
by the gods and goddesses of the natural world ; but during 
this period their religion may have progressed from the 
worship of nature powers to that of perfect human beings, 
living apart in Mount Olympus, but keenly interested in the 
fortunes of the race. So we find Athene, the warrior goddess, 
patron of the arts and crafts of civihzation, representing 
the triumph of intellectual wisdom, presiding over the 
AcropoUs on the Hill of Athens ; and Apollo, representative 
of the perfect body, teaching men music and poetry and all 
that appeals to the emotional side of human nature ; and 
many another deity whose influence was closely interwoven 
with the daily occupations of life. Such a living faith had a 
marked effect upon the Greek people of this period. For 
it was an age of colonization, when a rapid growth in popu- 
lation, the tempting nearness of the Mgesm Islands and the 
shore of Asia, or, it may be, internal pohtical troubles, urged 
each state to send forth emigrants and to plant colonies in 



THE " GLORY OF GREECE " 45 

both east and west. So we find Greek colonies in Russia, in 
Africa, in Sicily and Southern France, as well as all along 
the coasts of the Black Sea ; while the Mediterranean became 
practically an inland sea of Greece. And these immigrants 
were by no means of a primitive stage of civilization. They 
were able to bring capital with them and to employ the 
aborigines to work for them ; they raised spacious cities and 
bred lordly cattle and built fine fleets. It was said of them, 
indeed, that they built as though they would live for ever, 
and dined as though they would die next day. The cord 
that bound them together as Hellenes, all the world over, 
was the bond of their religion. But this in course of time 
wore very thin, and we find them looking down with scorn 
on their motherland and breaking loose from her whenever 
they could. 

Historic Greece — ^As the Greeks emerge into the light of 
history, somewhere about the eighth century B.C., we see 
them on our frieze in two very distinct groups. A change 
has been taking place that has transformed a pastoral people 
into townsfolk famed for their handicraft and trade; and 
the first group shows graceful, well-knit figures of youths and 
maidens, simply clad in tunic and flowing robe, with keen 
intellectual faces, clear-cut features, and beauty-loving eyes, 
against a background of buildings on fine, simple lines, based 
no longer on the stiff Oriental fashions, but on Nature's own 
designs. These are the Athenians, people of the city dedicated 
to the wise goddess who was patron of handicraft as well as 
of book-learning, men notable even in much later days for 
their restless love of novelty, their keen wits and quick 
emotions. They were energetic colonizers abroad, and at 
home were as famed for their love of experiment in forms 
of government as for their skill as traders and adventurers. 

The second group consists of a band of sturdy young 
warriors, hard and strong of limb and stern of feature, whose 
whole training has been directed to making them forget them- 
selves as individuals and to become perfect members of a 
warrior state. These are the Spartans, who were to become for 
a time the conquerors of all Greece and who bade fair once on 



46 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

a time to reduce its civilization to their own primitive ideal. 
Their land-locked country cut them off from sea adventure, 
and thus they were in a manner forced to make miUtary 
development their first aim. 

Round these two city states most of the history of 
Greece can be grouped, even in the early story of the land. 
But it is in Athens, the sea state, that we find the really 
typical development of Greece. In her we see the change 
from a feudal state to a great manufacturing and trading 
centre, famous for its weapons, its metal work, its woven 
goods, its pottery. In the commerce which Athens carried 
on with all the known world, we see her giving up the use of 
cattle as money in favour of bars of iron and copper and 
later on of coins. The first standard coin was struck in 
Lydia at a time when the West was still using a system 
of " barter " and valuing goods in cows and sheep. Thus 
money became the Greek standard of wealth, a necessary 
step when all the trade of the known world was falling into 
Greek hands. 

The Hmits of that world, too, were fast enlarging. The 
primitive Greek had placed the Gates of Hades, the " end of the 
world," at the western coast of the Peloponnesus ; but the 
opening up of the great caravan routes to Central Asia, 
Russia, and even China, gradually pushed it out to some 
region of mystery, the Islands of the Blest, beyond " the 
Ocean." 

The next great step was the introduction of a system 
of writing, probably on Phoenician models. The effect of 
this was immense. The adoption of a written code of law, 
supposed to be the work of Solon, really created a citizen 
state, in which all alike could claim protection for life and 
property. New intellectual ideas arose, were recorded, and 
exchanged. While Sparta, scorning books and book-learning, 
and trained by the State on strict military fines, was still 
in a primitive state of civilization, Athens bade fair to 
become the leader of Greece. 

The City States — In the sixth century b.c. we find this 
condition developed during a period of consolidation and 



THE " GLORY OF GREECE " 47 

unity. Everjrwhere the city states were growing fast, drawn 
together by the bond of rehgion, and especially by the yearly 
*' fairs/' or games, held at Olympia and elsewhere, in honour of 
the gods. A high ideal pervaded these contests. Only pure- 
blooded freemen might compete, with no stain upon them of 
sacrilege or murder. 

At Delphi, the home of Apollo, were held the meetings 
of the Amphictyonic League, a kind of League of Nations 
on a tiny scale, which drew up an international scheme of 
laws for the various city states, and strove to prevent war ; 
or, if this were impossible, ±o check its worst effects. Thus 
we find it enacting that the water supply of besieged cities 
was not to be cut off, and that no town, if a member of the 
League, was to be destroyed ; and, though its aims were 
religious rather than political, it certainly acted to some 
extent as an " international agent." 

Sparta and Athens — Meantime the military and auto- 
cratic state of Sparta and the economic and democratic 
Commonwealth of Athens were steadily emerging from the 
lesser states and preparing for a life-and-death struggle, 
strangely foreshadowing one that was to come some twenty- 
four centuries later. Year by year they grew more distinct 
as their characteristics differed more widely. 

By this time the Spartans, the offspring of the sturdy 
peasant Dorian race, composed an aristocratic and despotic 
state, ruUng the older conquered races as serfs and depen- 
dents, and ruled themselves by two kings, who were controlled 
by a board of five magistrates called Ephors, elected annually 
and possessing very wide powers. The Spartan knew no family 
life ; he ate and drank and lived and died in public, and 
swayed the fortunes of his state by his vote on war and 
treaty, whatever his rank might be. His marked success in 
warfare when he came to grips with Persia shows the triumph 
of trained muscle and will over a vast unwieldy state that 
had lost its own simplicity in the overwhelming and un- 
digested civilization of its conquered peoples ; but they would 
have availed little without the aid of the Athenian fleet. 

Athens stood, on the other hand, for the triumph of 



48 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

mind. At an early stage a mythical lawgiver named Draco 
had well-nigh crushed the infant state by the severity of his 
legal code. Political rights were only for those who could 
produce a complete war equipment, and this placed so much 
power in the hands of a few rich nobles that the " small 
man " lost hope, got into debt, was sold for a slave to pay 
his creditors or fled as an exile from his native land. 

To Solon is the credit due of laying the real foundations 
of Athens. He swept away this system, freed the debtors, 
limited the amount of land that could be held by one man, 
and gave the right of vote in the Assembly to the rich noble, 
the small landowner, and the labourer alike. Under these 
conditions the City of the Sea developed fast, becoming in 
the days of Cleisthenes a complete commonwealth, famed for 
its intellectual activity, its fervour of religion, its successful 
trade, its beauty of architecture, above all, for its power of 
individual thought and self-expression. 

Nor was the great bronze statue of Athene Promachos, 
the " Fighter in the Front," which, clad in helmet and spear, 
ruled with arm outstretched over city and sea, a mere empty 
boast of later days. It was an Athenian army, aided, it is true, 
by geographical conditions, that saved not only Greece but the 
greater part of Southern Europe from the grasp of Persia on the 
" Day of Marathon," and so left an indelible mark on the history 
of the world. It was an Athenian fleet under Themistocles 
that, a few years later, drove the fleet of Persia headlong from 
the coast. The Spartan Leonidas had indeed played a noble 
part in his defence of the Pass of Thermopylae with a handful 
of men ; but Sparta, an inland state, knew nothing of sea- 
manship ; and it was Athens who finally set Greece free from 
fear of Persian tyranny and made her a foremost name among 
the nations of the world. 

The Golden Age of Athens — ^The fifth century b.c. was 
the " Golden Age " of Athens. Under the skilful guidance 
of Pericles, wisest of statesmen, she had become the foremost 
state of Greece, watched indeed jealously by Sparta, but 
able to subdue one reluctant state of central Greece after 
another till she was overlord of all. She was the mother of 



THE " GLORY OF GREECE '* 49 

rich colonies, the islands of the sea looked to her as mistress, 
her own trade was world-wide. Within her walls rose glorious 
temples, and within the beautiful Parthenon, dedicated to 
the Maiden Goddess of the city, the wooden statue of Athene 
had been covered with plates of ivory for flesh, and of gold for 
raiment, by the sculptor Pheidias, whose pupils were to 
carve the famous frieze that you may see to-day, almost 
untouched by age. The face of the goddess is strangely 
typical of the Greek character as found in the northern 
part of the peninsula. As she stands there resting upon her 
shield, the face is full of that joy of life that was the secret 
of Greek vitality. There is a hint of quick intuition in the 
mobile lips, the speculative brow, the alert pose ; and mingled 
with it is a look of grave wisdom that reminds us that one 
~of the chief legacies of Greece to the world at large was the 
power of hard, clear thought, as hard and clear as her own 
sculptures. For still, in the Modem World, some twenty- 
five centuries after the Golden Age of Greece, we reason by 
her methods of thought and abide by her intellectual laws. 
Our greatest philosophers look back to Socrates and Plato 
and Aristotle as their masters ; our most modern scientists 
owe something to the Greek discoverers of the theory of 
atoms ; our dramatists are still to some extent bound by the 
conventions of the stage of ^Eschylus and Sophocles and 
Euripides. There is, indeed, no form of modern intellectual 
activity that was not, to some extent, developed and, so to 
speak, standardized in Ancient Greece. 

Yet, at the height of apparent success, the foundations 
of Athens were already crumbling. The economic wisdom 
of Pericles had for a time staved off one danger by forming 
city colonies as an outlet for the unemployed, and by insisting 
on the principle that " not poverty, but the spirit of idleness 
that refuses to defend itself against it, is looked on with 
contempt." In the plays of Euripides and Aristophanes 
we see the restless spirit of the age, the growing contempt for 
religious faith, the bitterness of soul that cried out for the 
right to the fullest kind of life for every man, without knowing 
how to use the means to attain to it. In vain did Socrates, 
4 



50 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

the philosopher, and Plato, his interpreter, preach a system of 
morals founded on knowledge and will-power. The typical 
Athenian after the days of Pericles was Alcibiades, that 
brilliant and versatile youth, scorning gods and men ahke, 
full of egotism and love of singularity for its own sake, and so 
utterly indifferent to the welfare of his mother state that he 
was prepared to sell her to Sparta or to Persia if he could but 
get his price. Foiled in this, his sheer weight of personahty 
pushed him into the leadership of Athens for a brief period ; 
but his real weakness of character was seen in the way the 
city fell, through acts of utter carelessness on his part, between 
the opposing buffers of Sparta and Persia. 

It was the supreme chance of the War State against the 
Intellectual State ; and intellectual freedom went down with 
a crash before the discipline which in other forms was her 
own greatest necessity. For a few bitter years Greece as a 
whole was to feel the effects of an iron autocracy, of a military 
rule waged by Sparta in alliance with Persia. It was a short- 
lived supremacy for Sparta ; for the strength of the latter 
lay, not in the senate-house, but on the battlefield. Yet it left 
Greece torn by internal conflicts and a ready prey to Phihp 
of Macedon, the Man of Iron, when the troops of Macedon 
swarmed down upon the plains of Attica. For Philip found 
there no union of states, no supreme leader, but an army 
composed of mercenaries ; and her only true patriot was the 
orator Demosthenes, who had in vain stirred his fellow- 
citizens to preserve their liberty. 

Yet the faU of Greece was saved from being a catastrophe, 
a mere triumph of brute force, by the character of her future 
ruler Alexander, the son of Philip, whom we have already 
seen as the conqueror of the East. It was impossible for him, 
the pupil of Aristotle and the embodiment of all that was 
finest in Greek civilization, to make Greece a mere appendage 
to a half-civilized state. His own ideal of kingship was one 
that should influence men, not by force, but by deeds of 
chivalry and nobility ; as the personification of the ancient 
Greek hero Achilles, he would bring back a Golden Age to 
Greece. And for a time Alexander actually did succeed in 



THE "GLORY OF GREECE" 51 

holding together a vast empire by the strength of hero-worship. 
A greater achievement was the joining of the opposing forces 
of East and West by making the city Alexandria the centre 
of world commerce, the centre also of a League of Nations 
that stretched from Athens to another Alexandria in India. 
The appearance of this city of Alexandria was as a sign and a 
symbol. Built foursquare to the four quarters of the earth, 
and intersected by two great thoroughfares at right angles to 
each other, she beckoned to every part of the known world, 
calling students of every nation to the doors of her immense 
library, her museums, her lecture-rooms, the centre of all 
science and all philosophy, where Euclid taught mathematics 
and the " intellectuals " gathered at his feet. 

Yet it has been well said that " the Greece we all worship 
is not the far-spreading Empire of Alexander, but the group 
of related, autonomous city-states,' where intelligence and 
commercial skill were qualities of citizenship, and citizenship 
was the essence of civilization." ^ 

The legacy of Greece to the world was a political and moral 
experiment hitherto unknown ; "an ideal of the sane mind 
in the sane body " ; and an indication of the true meaning of 
Democracy in its best and fullest sense. 

The effect upon the world of the work of Alexander was 
immense. Everywhere the Greek tongue was spoken and 
Greek ideals were spread ; and when the scientific investiga- 
tion of Ancient Babylon was mingled with the clear-cut, 
essentially modem thought of Greece, the result was in every 
respect a signal triumph for intellect over force. 

Yet as an Empire, Greece in the days of the Roman 
invasion no longer existed ; and when, a century and a half 
after the conquest of Philip, the Roman general Flaminius 
announced that she was free, she had forgotten how to use 
her liberty and fell prostrate before the Roman spears. But 
in one sense she was never conquered. Her most bitter 
enemies always ended by absorbing her civiUzation and 
adopting her ideas ; it was from her that all the countries 
of the world obtained their standards of law and architecture, 
^ G. H. Perris, History of War and Peace. 



52 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

of music, poetry and sculpture. Even her religion, transformed 
to suit a sterner race, migrated to Rome. Her political theories 
have influenced the whole world ; and her hard, clear methods 
of thought have been adopted by every nation in every age 
down to the present day. 



EXERCISES 

1. What is the legacy of Greece to the modern world ? 

2. Account for the rapid development of Greek civilization. 

3. Bring out and try to account for the main points of differ- 
ence between Athens and Sparta. 



CHAPTER VI 
THE " SPLENDOUR OF ROME " 

(750 B.C.-A.D. 14) 

THERE next appears upon our frieze of history a 
well-ordered legion of warriors, mingling in their 
veins the blood of three rival nations, the Etruscan, 
Sabine, and Latin races, and following a brazen eagle 
as the symbol of their world-wide ideals. 

They represent the race that was to conquer not only 
by force of arms but by sheer weight of a perfect political 
organization, and by their practical realization of the meaning 
of Authority in its widest and fullest sense. 

" If there is a people in the world," says their own 
historian Livy, " who can call Mars its founder and forefather, 
it is certainly the people of Rome, who, exchanging the 
shepherd's staff for the warrior's sword, have subjected the 
whole world to their rule." 

The patriotism of the writer lays stress upon the military 
glory of Rome in later years, but it says nothing of the ideals 
of law and order, of strong government and training in 
citizenship, that marked the difference between a war State, 
such as that of Assyria in its comparatively brief existence, 
and the vast organization out of which Rome developed her 
mighty Empire. For military skill was only one of her 
methods of expansion ; and a much greater part was played 
by her road-building and her colonies, and her method of 
governing them. 

The difference between Greece and Rome is equally well 
marked, in spite of the fact that in later days Rome borrowed 
her religion, her literature, her art, straight from the country 
she had vanquished. 

53 



54 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

The spiritual, emotional, and artistic side of life appealed 
little to the Roman, whose ideal was comprised in the word 
" citizenship," and to whom civihzation meant the outward 
condition of law and order, the well-built city rather than the 
well-equipped mind. 

" I am a citizen of no mean city," boasted one of her sons 
in the early days of the Christian Church ; and such words 
must have been often on the lips of those who claimed Rome 
as their mother. Lacking the " spirited youthfulness," the joy 
of Ufe that distinguished the Greek, the Roman possessed 
instead a " stern and calculating manhness " that produced 
the fine ascetic character known all over the world as the " old 
Roman " type. 

The origins of such men would be full of interest were 
they not so closely overshadowed by mylh as to be almost 
unrecognizable. The earUest race of Italy were probably 
immigrant Iberians, perhaps haiUng from Africa, or farther 
East from the Caucasus Mountains, men who finally moved 
on west to Spain, and south to Sicily, where their character- 
istics survive in the Basques and Sicihans of modern days. 
They seem to have been small and slender, dark-eyed and 
dark-skinned, with well-shaped hands and feet. The next 
invaders, Indo-Germanic tribes coming down the valley of the 
Po, who called themselves Ligurians, broke up into various 
scattered colonies of Samnites, Volscians, Latins, Sabines, 
Umbrians, and in Ancient Venice, at least, under the name of 
Illyrians, possessed a fairly advanced civihzation. 

The Etruscan Invasion — ^Then came a wave of invasion by 
a mightier race, the Etruscans, who spread rapidly across the 
plain of the River Po and over Latium and Campania. They 
were a mysterious people, haiUng probably from the valleys of 
Western Asia, and had reached Italy on their " trek " through 
Central Europe. Conjecture has linked them with the 
Hebrews, with the Scandinavians, with the Iberian aborigines ; 
but nothing certain is known of their origin. 

The Ancients called them Pelasgi, and painted them as a 
wild fierce people such as probably belong to a very early 
period of volcanic disturbance and earthquake. They seem 



THE " SPLENDOUR OF ROME " 55 

to have held aloof from the other Aryan tribes, from which 
their round heads and short stout figures distinguished them, 
as well as their dark and gloomy temperament. But they 
nevertheless reached the highest civiUzation known in Italy 
before the era of Rome ; and Rome herself bore the impression 
of many of their customs, while their superstitions, such as 
the foretelling of the fate of man from the entrails of a slain 
beast, were deeply ingrained in Roman ritual. 

The underground tombs of these people, the vases and 
temples of Tuscany, show the strong influence of Egypt and 
Assyria, perhaps by way of Phoenicia and of Greece at the 
stage of the Mycenaean period of civilization. They built 
their cities high upon the hills ; they were at home on sea as 
on land ; and as in course of time they overran most of Italy, 
we are bound to regard them as in some sense the ancestors 
of Rome herself. 

Probably these Etruscans were the Tarquins of the 
legendary period, before the middle of the eighth century 
before Christ. The Romans, then a shepherd tribe, settled 
about the banks of Tiber, acknowledged their supremacy for 
a time, and when Rome shook off their rule she did not forget 
what they had taught her. Her police system — ^the lictors 
and the fasces ; her insignia of office — ^the purple toga and 
the curule chair ; her drainage system — ^the Great Sewer, 
caUed " Cloaca Maxima " ; her early architecture as seen 
in the Temple on the Capitol ; her calendar, her metal-work, 
her pottery — all were Etruscan ; and when Rome appears 
on the pages of actual history, her sons undoubtedly showed 
traces of Etruscan as well as of Latin descent. Moreover, of 
aU the primitive civilizations of Italy, the Etruscan is the 
only one that survived to any extent, and is the only one 
handed on, through Rome, to the Modern World. 

The Heroic Age — ^The Heroic Age of Rome shows us 
the origin of the Republic at the period when the " rule of 
kings," that is, of the Etruscans, was finally demolished. 
In the years of warfare between the infant state and the alien 
tribes by which Rome was surrounded, we find the reasons 
that made her inhabitants a military people instead of a 



m A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

pastoral tribe. No doubt her position near the mouth of the 
Tiber had much to do with her rapid progress ; for even at the 
beginning of the days of the Repubhc we find the Romans 
making trade treaties with Carthage, then the chief commercial 
city of the Mediterranean. 

Let us glance for a moment at the stage reached by Rome 
about the fifth centm-y B.C., when the RepubUc was an 
accomplished fact. During the past three hundred years 
the Romans had become definitely transformed from a 
pastoral race to a commercial and military people. The 
need of protecting themselves against the hostile tribes that 
surrounded them had forced them, in the first instance, to 
take up sword and spear ; and by this time all citizens were 
bound to take their place in the ranks of the army in time 
of war. 

At the head of the Republic were placed two Consuls, or 
" colleagues," for the space of one year ; at the end of that 
time these were generally appointed to the governorship of a 
province and were not re-elected. In time of war, since a 
consul was strictly the city magistrate, and was not supposed 
to leave Rome during his term of office, a dictator was ap- 
pointed for six months at a time to control military affairs. 

The religion of the Romans, as well as their art, was either 
inherited from the Etruscans or, in later days, borrowed from 
Greece. At this period their religion was closely connected 
with the pastoral occupations of their ancestors, and Flora, 
the flower-goddess, Saturn, the god of the seed-sowing, Janus, 
the two-headed sun-god, facing east and west, were among 
their chief deities. 

A college of Augurs interpreted omens by the flight of 
birds or the entrails of beasts ; another college of Pontiffs, 
or bridge-makers, regulated matters of faith as well as matters 
of hygiene. 

Both the religious and social instincts of the Roman were 
centred round his homestead, and in every household was 
found an altar to the Lares, or spirits of the dead, and to the 
Penates, the deities who presided over the dwelling. In their 
honour was lighted the fire upon each hearthstone ; and 



THE " SPLENDOUR OF ROME " 57 

sacred fire played a chief part in the Temple of Vesta, where 
it burned perpetually under the care of six vestal virgins, a 
symbol of that burning spark of vitality that was to make this 
small and comparatively unknown city the centre of a vast 
and enduring empire. 

Aristocracy and Democracy — ^The two and a half cen- 
turies that followed the founding of the Republic were a period 
of external and internal warfare. Inside the city there raged 
a long struggle between the aristocratic Patricians, the de- 
scendants of the first " fathers " of Rome, and the democratic 
Plebeians, descendants of non-Romans who had swarmed in 
for purposes of refuge or of commerce. Little by little these 
Plebeians worked out their own salvation as citizens, wresting 
from the aristocratic party, first, their Tribunes or special 
representatives, whose veto could prevent the passing of an 
unrighteous law, then their equality with the Patricians in 
private rights. As the struggle continued, various privileges 
of the Patricians were gradually surrendered, until finally all 
the public offices were open to Plebeian and Patrician alike. 
Next to the Consuls, the most important officials were : 
Praetors, who were the chief justices of the Republic ; Aediles, 
who were at once police magistrates and superintendents of 
temples and other public buildings ; Quaestors, who had 
charge of the public treasury ; Censors, who were responsible 
for the periodical census lists, giving the rank, property, 
and assessment of each citizen, and also had control of the 
public land ; and Tribunes, already mentioned, who were 
appointed for the special protection of the common people, 
and whose functions were therefore mainly negative or 
restrictive. But the real seat of power in Rome was the 
Senate, or Council of Elders, composed mostly of ex-officials, 
which practically controlled all public business. 

The Expansion of Rome — During this time an unceasing 
conflict was being maintained outside Rome over every yard 
of the land that was to form the nucleus of her future empire. 
At first it was a mere border warfare against neighbouring 
tribes, all of which were gradually absorbed or dispersed. Then 
came the great struggle with an alien foe, the fierce Gauls of 



58 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

the North, who burnt the city to the ground. Thence rose a 
new Rome, strengthened and purified by suffering, stretching 
her arms both North and South, and maintaining her hold on 
what she won by means of flourishing colonies connected by 
the straight and well-made roads that led from the heart 
of her city, like arteries, through the land of Italy. 

For a while the South of Italy, an old Greek colony and 
still known as Greater Greece, withstood her with the aid of 
Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, a famous general and cousin of 
Alexander the Great. For the moment North faced South, 
and it even looked as if the latter might prevail. But, though 
Pyrrhus gained more than one victory over the Romans, they 
cost him very dear, as he lost thousands of men, and he was 
so much impressed by the courage of the Roman soldiers as 
to declare that with them he could conquer the world. 

More important than the gain of all Italy was the rapid 
absorption by Rome of the spirit of Greece. The glory of that 
land, as seen first in Magna Grsecia, then in her trade inter- 
course with Greece herself, dazzled the eyes of the Romans, 
and kindled in them the determination to make that country 
their own. Their historians wrote in Greek, and that language 
was taught in every school. For a while the actual conquest 
was delayed by the long warfare with the Carthaginians 
which drove that people, famous for their wealth and com- 
merce, from Sicily, overcame them in Africa and Syria, and 
finally left scarcely one stone of their famous city as a re- 
membrance of her ancient greatness. 

When the great names of Hannibal and Hasdrubal were 
trampled in the dust before the oncoming legions of Rome, 
Greece was the next to fall, gazing with sorrowful eyes at the 
seizure of her fair statues and treasures of art, which were 
carried off to Italy by a general so ignorant of all that they 
implied that he told the master of the ship that bore them that 
if they were damaged they must be replaced at his own cost. 
Yet the culture of Greece was but a thin veneer over the 
Roman civihzation of the third century B.C. During the 
next hundred years all the energies of Rome were absorbed 
in the wars that made her mistress of Spain and Gaul, of 



THE " SPLENDOUR OF ROME " 59 

S57ria, Egj^pt, and Asia Minor. East and West the world 
clanged with the noise of her warfare, and the century pre- 
ceding the Christian era saw her the conqueror of the known 
world. For in the East Pompey had overrun Sjnia in 62 B.C., 
in the West Julius Caesar from 58 to 50 B.C. had made himself 
master of Gaul, and Augustus, the future Emperor, had 
conquered Egypt on the South in 30 B.C., just two years 
before the Empire was established. 

Economic Conditions — But while Rome was thus absorbed 
abroad in her conquest of the world, her conditions at home 
were rotten to the core. While her best citizens were fighting 
in the field, her worst were left to govern the city and the 
home provinces. Rapidly there arose a system of bribery, 
extortion, and *' land-grabbing," which drove the small free- 
holder and the yeoman from the soil and left the land to 
be tilled by slaves. Unemployed labourers swelled the lowest 
stratum of town popxilation. Scarcity of food made them 
dependent on foreign supplies; need of money left them a 
prey to the " pubhcan " or tax-collector, who contracted for 
the taxes wrung from a starving people and made an immense 
profit out of the job. A demoralized populace, forgetting 
the dignity of labour, clamoured for free bread, while the 
rulers were becoming more and more absorbed in the hunt 
for plunder in the East. Nothing but a prolonged period of 
peace, as well as a radical revolution in her government, could 
have saved Rome at this crisis. 

Yet outwardly her power was colossal. Seven centuries 
of almost incessant warfare had transformed the primitive 
village on the Tiber into the centre of a vast Empire. At 
least a hundred different races, ranging from the highest 
types of civilization in Greece and Egypt to the barbaric 
tribes of Gaul, " Germania," and Spain, owned her sway. 
When Augustus Caesar, her first Emperor, was crowned in 
28 B.C., he could look forth from the walls of Rome to an Empire 
whose frontiers on the West were the Atlantic Ocean and the 
Channel between Britain and Gaul, a frontier soon to be 
extended by the conquest of Britain ; on the South, the 
African desert ; on the East, the river Euphrates, and soon 



60 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

to include also Mesopotamia and Arabia ; on the North, the 
rivers Rhine and Danube. 

These frontiers had been fixed by a warfare that had 
sca,rcely ceased for centuries ; it was the chief gift of Augustus 
to the newly-formed Empire that he caused the Temple of 
Janus, whose doors stood always open in wartime, to be 
closed for a period long enough to introduce an era of con- 
struction in place of the devastation of past centuries. 

The inner weakness of the sprawling Empires of the Ancient 
World had been shown again and again by their inabiUty to 
hold what they had won. The strength of Augustus is seen 
in the fact that he understood the meaning of consohdation 
even better than that of conquest. Four things were needed. 
The frontiers must be held, and held in strength. Hence we 
find the picked legions of Rome in full force guarding the 
distant points of Empire in Gaul and Syria, in Spain and 
Africa, on the Rhine and Danube banks, where they formed 
armies of occupation, and often intermarried with the 
native women. The second pressing need was a well-organized 
system of administration. Proconsuls, or legates, responsible 
directly to the Emperor, ruled the conquered provinces, 
enforcing Roman law and customs, giving the vanquished 
good government and protection from their foes. 

The third need, that of means of communication, was met 
by the straight-paved high roads, roads that have never 
been excelled in construction, which led from all the chief 
points of the frontiers direct to Rome. On these a special 
band of centurions acted as couriers, speeding from Rome to 
the outskirts of the Empire on swift horses, kept ready for 
them from stage to stage. 

Lastly, under a just method of taxation, the population 
of the conquered provinces, as well as that of Italy herself, 
began to prosper exceedingly. Trade flourished ; fine public 
buildings arose ; a literature, second only to that of Greece, 
developed under the immediate patronage of the Emperor 
himself, and the great names of Ovid, Virgil, Horace, and Livy 
became famous throughout the known world. To some 
degree, in the midst of a luxurious civilization, the Roman 



THE " SPLENDOUR OF ROME " 61 

kept his strain of hardness. His chief amusements were the 
great gladiatorial combats fought in the amphitheatre, with 
the cry of the combatants, " Hail, Caesar ! We who are about 
to die salute thee ! " in his ears. Yet even now the seeds of 
decay were visible. He was content to be a spectator instead 
of an actor, and, like the onlookers at a modern football match, 
was more ready to use his voice in cheering others than to 
risk his own limbs. 

Under the rule of Augustus the whole appearance of Rome 
was transformed, and the saying that he " found it brick 
and left it marble " is almost literally true. Even in these 
days we find that most of the remains of imperial Rome 
date from his time. But the Modem World owes more than a 
debt of fine architecture to the man who founded the Roman 
Empire. The organization which Augustus established was 
to last, modified but essentially unchanged, without a break, 
for fifteen hundred years, until the Empire itself finally 
vanished. 

The soundness of an Empire thus organized is proved, 
not only by the length of time it lasted, but by the fact that 
it survived unmoved the inefficient and vicious rule of such 
emperors as Caligula and Claudius and Nero. It looks indeed 
as though a genius for empire-building was innate in the 
Roman temperament and could not be destroyed by the 
effect of scandalous careers at Rome ; for the rule of these 
men was as strongly ef&cient outside Rome as it was weakly 
inefficient within her walls. Perhaps this is due to the fact 
that the proconsuls of those days were better men than their 
emperors, and this in spite of the fact that the mother city 
offered no good training-ground for empire-building. The 
spirit of Rome was yet intensely Roman ; and her vast 
Empire was still in those days regarded merely as a convenient 
means of taxation for the benefit of the Mother Country. 
Never in the writings of this " classical '' period do we find 
the idea of imperialism set forth as a worthy ideal. The city 
of Rome was always the object of their adoring praise. 

With the domestic tragedies that dogged the steps of the 
emperors of the first centuries of the Empire we will not 



62 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

deal. Let us turn our eyes instead with reverence and awe 
to an event that took place in the little town of Bethlehem, 
a tiny spot in the great Roman Empire of the East, in the 
twenty-fourth year of Augustus, seven hundred and fifty 
years after the founding of the city of Rome. 

There were few in those days to recognize the tremendous 
nature of that event, the birth of the Divine Child Who was 
to set up a new Ideal for the world and to be the Founder of 
a spiritual Kingdom that was to outlast aU the changing 
empires of the centuries to come. 

The birth of Jesus Clirist took place at a time when the 
old religious faith of Rome was practically dead. We have 
seen how, on the intellectual side, Rome had been swamped 
by the learning of Greece ; and when she adopted the latter's 
spiritual ideals these were at a stage when they were expressed 
rather in systems of philosophy than in actual doctrines. 
So, at the beginning of the Empire, while the ordinary man in 
the street had ceased to take an interest in a faith in which 
only the ignorant peasants of the countryside really believed, 
the ** intellectuals " of Rome had ranged themselves on the 
side of the teachers of the Epicurean or Stoic or Platonic 
philosophies. 

Augustus was far too astute not to see the danger in this. 
He reaHzed that rehgion has always been the strongest bond 
in the unity of nations, and that decaying temples were only 
an outward sign of the decay of the spiritual and most import- 
ant part of man. He knew, too, that it was the loss of her 
reUgious faith that led to the disunion and weakness of 
Greece and to her ultimate faU. So he made an heroic effort 
to revive the ancient beliefs of the Romans. His famous 
'* Testament," engraved upon his tomb, stated that he erected 
more than eighty temples in the city ; but he knew that these 
were but empty shells unless the personal element of love and 
adoration could be revived. It was useless to fan the flame 
of devotion for a dead Jupiter or Mercury or Juno ; the only 
way was to make himself the centre of this rehgious revival. 
So he, himself an unbeliever and not even a philosopher, took 
the title of Pontifex Maximus, the head of the ancient coUege 



THE " SPLENDOUR OF ROME " 



63 



of priests ; and before the end of his reign divine honours were 
paid to him and a " Temple to the Divine Augustus " reared 
its head in Rome. 

Yet, even in the midst of his attempt to make himself a 
god, there seems to have existed in his mind an uneasy pre- 
monition that his claim to divinity would soon be shown to 
be a shadow of the substance. A legend of his days, which 
has a curious confirmation in an ancient inscription, says that 
on one occasion the Senate proposed to confer divine honours 
upon him. But the Emperor, as he stood in the Temple of 
Jupiter on the hUl of the Capitol, saw a vision of a woman 
bearing a child in her arms, standing upon an altar. So, says 
the legend, he consulted the Sibyl whose office was to explain 
such things from her oracle-haunted cell at Cumae ; and she 
repHed that it signified the coming of a king from heaven, 
who should be bom of a virgin. And to this day, in apparent 
confirmation of this fact, there stands an ancient altar within 
the Christian Church known as the " Ara CoeH," which is 
universally believed to have been erected in the Temple of 
Jupiter by Augustus. It is inscribed with the words : " Ara 
Primogeniti Dei " — ^the Altar of the First-born God. 

The effect upon the world of that apparently insignificant 
Birth, Life, and Death in a remote and despised region of the 
Empire will be seen in the story of the Mediaeval World. 

BOOKS RECOMMENDED FOR FURTHER STUDY 



Helmolt . . 


Universal History. 


SiMCOX . . . 


. Primitive Civilization. 


Sayce . 


. Ancient Empires of the East. 


Maspero . 


. Dawn of Civilization. 


»> • • 


. Passing of the Empires. 


King and Hal 


L . . Discoveries in Chaldcea, Egypt, and 




Western Asia. 


Ball 


. Light from the East. 


Browne 


. Fourteen Centuries of East and West. 


SOUTTAR . . 


. History of the Ancient Peoples. 


Burrows . 


. Discoveries in Crete. 


Bury 


. History of Greece. 



64 



A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 



Shuckburgh 

Tucker 

De La Fosse 

Breasted . 

Myers . 

Lavisse et Rambaud 



History of Rome, 
Life in Ancient Athens. 
History of India, 
Ancient Times, 
General History. 
Histoire generate. 



SECTION II 
THE MEDIiEVAL WORLD 

CHAPTER VI 

THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 
(a.d. 30-600) 

STRICTLY speaking, the Mediaeval World dates from the 
Fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century after the 
birth of Christ. Long before that time, however, we see 

upon our frieze of history a medley of figures, confused 
as to race and nation, advancing with threatening gestures 
upon the centre of the Empire. From their original home, 
somewhere in Central Asia, these warriors had been, for 
centuries, pouring forth in waves of destruction over the 
surrounding countries. The Persians knew their fighting 
powers, the Macedonians their persistence. For the moment 
the Ukraine in South- West Russia had been the home of one of 
their peoples, and thence they migrated to the Danube banks. 
Always from behind they were pushed forward by the sheer 
weight of other barbarian hordes, until they broke in a great 
wave over the borders of Italy and overflowed into Africa, 
Gaul, Hispania, to the uttermost limits of the Empire. In 
their turn these others were displaced by Vandals, Vandals by 
Huns, Huns again by fresh hordes of Vandals following in 
their track, while Lombards, Franks, Saxons, and the count- 
less tribes known collectively as '* Germans " surged on 
from time to time in the place of one or other of these 
races. 

Differing widely from one another in their characteristics, 
they all alike followed the same tracks of invasion, and attacked 

5 



66 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

the Empire, sometimes in its weaker and outlying parts, some- 
times at its very heart. 

The Work of the First Four Centuries— The Fall of the 
Empire of the West was preceded by four centuries of outward 
splendour and strength, beneath which the actual elements 
of weakness were concealed. During these years we see the 
long Hue of Roman Emperors, magnificent, triumphant, ruling 
with strong hand the whole of the civilized and most of the 
unciviUzed world. We may even see the Aryan invaders from 
Central Asia, known as Goths and " Germans," beginning, in 
their admiration for an organizing genius they utterly lacked, 
to absorb the imperial idea and to settle down for a while as 
colonists of Rome. 

We see, moreover, the enormously important work done 
by Rome in imposing upon the scattered portions of her vast 
estate an ideal of unity, a spirit of cosmopolitanism, in place 
of petty race standards, so that all national distinctions be- 
came merged by degrees into the two great central ideas of 
Empire and Citizen. 

From this only the Jews and the Greeks stood aloof — ^the 
one from their deep-rooted belief that they, and they alone, 
were the Elect of God, the Chosen People, whose national 
traits must be jealously guarded for ever ; the latter from a 
pride of intellect which, even in their conquered state, made 
them regard their conquerors with lofty scorn. 

This ideal of the Unity of the Empire, with the 
imperial city as the heart of all, was the chief legacy of Rome 
to the World, and we shall find it persisting through the 
centuries in spite of the rents made by her conflicts with Goth 
and Vandal and Hun. And just when the whole fabric 
threatened to crack and split asunder in consequence of the 
ceaseless blows from barbarian invaders, there came to her 
aid an influence that had been developing, with a swift and 
steady growth, throughout these early centuries. Just as the 
Empire, all unconsciously, came to the aid of Christianity 
in its earhest days and helped to spread its doctrines by means 
of her far-flung tentacles, her excellent system of roads, her 
imiversal employment of the Greek tongue (which made the 



THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 67 

teaching of the new faith possible in every part of the known 
world), as well as by the fury of her persecution ; so the 
organization of the Christian Church, with its great central 
authority, its outlying missionary centres, helped to support 
the falling Empire and to preserve the Roman methods and 
standards of government when one part of the Empire had 
crashed to its ruin. 

For the very power that had been subjected by Roman 
Emperors to bitter persecution for three hundred years became 
in spite, or rather, in consequence, of this, a great political as 
well as spiritual force, with her own governing body " re- 
producing within herself the imperial system." Her local 
churches looked to Rome as their centre and authority, her 
provinces and dioceses corresponded with the divisions of the 
Empire, and in the end her spiritual and temporal authority 
grew so strong that Emperors had to bow to her will. 

This will be seen very much more clearly later on, when 
we realize what might have been the fate of Europe at the 
fall of the Empire of the West, if this " Kingdom of God on 
earth " had never come into existence. 

Meantime, let us glance at the outstanding features of these 
first six centuries of the Christian era. 

The Years before the Fall o! the Empire — The first three 
centuries show a pageant of almost unshadowed brilliance. 
The Empire had touched her highest level of prosperity. Her 
commerce, industries, art, and letters had made her famous for 
all generations. Almost every part of her vast estate had 
been raised by her to a higher pitch of civilization than the 
world had yet known. Even far-away Britain showed tokens 
of her progressive spirit in the " villas " or country houses, 
with their mosaic floors, in the "baths," and in the coins and 
urns and burial-places of her dead. 

In the fourth century a note of weakness is heard. Even 
the insignificant province of the Western Sea heard it and wept 
to see the legions that brought Britain prosperity and civiliza- 
tion hurried back to defend the borders of the motherland 
from invasion. Other signs of insecurity were noted by those 
who looked beneath the surface, in spite of the fact that her 



68 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

army could boast that it had been only twice defeated during 
an incessant conflict of eighty years, that her cities were 
numerous and magnificent, that her people, in spite of heavy 
taxation, were exceedingly prosperous, that barbarian countries 
had developed into civihzed provinces under her rule. The 
surface was indeed very fair. Never again for nine hundred 
years was Europe to know such fine cities connected by 
good roads, such harbours filled with shipping, such a system 
of posts and hostelries for the messenger or the trader, or such 
a perfect legal organization, touching the very nerves and 
sinews of her vast system. 

Yet during the next hundred years, within, indeed, an 
extraordinarily brief period, the whole of the Western Empire 
of Rome had crashed together in a swift and appalhng 
destruction. 

Let us glance back for a moment at three outstanding 
features of the two centuries before the crash occurred. 

Diocletian — ^At the close of the third century the Empire 
was ruled by an active and able prince, the Emperor Diocletian. 
He had found that Empire threatening to crack to pieces in the 
hands of a number of petty rulers, generals of armies or 
governors of provinces, who had become for all intents and 
purposes monarchs of the lands they administered. 

Realizing to the full the importance of the unity of the 
state in days when Europe was far from ready for the national 
idea of independent kingdoms, Diocletian took a strong line. 

He divided the Empire into four portions, three of which 
were ruled by colleagues who all acknowledged his supremacy. 
Thus Gaul, Britain, Spain, and part of North Africa were 
governed from Treves ; Italy and the remaining provinces of 
North Africa from Milan; Greece, Thrace, Macedonia, and 
the Danube provinces from Sirmium on the River Save ; Asia 
Minor, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Egypt from Nicomedia on 
the eastern shore of the Bosphorus, and these last by Diocletian 
himself. 

Thus, by this system of subdivision, the real power of the 
actual ruler could make itself felt in every quarter ; the 
barbarian races were absorbed, and prosperity was restored 



THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 69 

to the Empire. And in order to carry this through with a 
high hand, Diocletian, ignoring the Senate, and not even 
residing at Rome, made himself an absolute monarch, whose 
word literally was the law of every citizen within the Roman 
world. 

Strangely enough, this clever and able man completely 
mistook the character of the one organization that would, 
more than anything else, have helped to strengthen his ideal 
of the unification of the provinces. The edict which he 
issued for the persecution of the Christians deluged the Empire 
with the blood of martyrs ; and this, by driving fugitives far 
and wide throughout the lands he ruled, served only to spread 
the doctrines of the religion he hoped to destroy. The blood 
of the martyrs became the seed of the Christian Church ; but 
none who saw the beginning of that awful reign of terror 
lasting from 303 to 313 could have foretold the extraordinary 
way in which it was to end. 

The Growth 0! the Christian Church — For one of the four 
successors of Diocletian, in the year 307, was Constantine, 
proclaimed as Emperor by his troops, in the province of 
Britain over which he had ruled as Caesar. He at once found 
himself opposed by a rival, Maxentius, who ruled the Italian 
province from Rome. And it was in his march upon that 
city that Constantine is said to have seen, in broad daylight 
in the sky, a flaming cross crowned by the words in Greek, 
" In this sign thou shalt conquer." 

The victory that followed was the triumph of the per- 
secuted faith. Even if the conqueror himself did not become 
a Christian till some years later, the Christian Church had 
no more to fear. In the year 313 the Edict of Milan declared 
the absolute freedom of Christianity, and ordered that all 
churches, lands, and property that had been confiscated were 
to be restored at once. 

The most remarkable feature of this conversion is not its 
miraculous origin, or the speed with which the whole matter 
was carried through. It is the fact that the whole Roman 
world, which ten years earlier had almost unanimously com- 
bined to stamp out a hated form of religion, had, within that 



70 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

short space of time, completely changed its mind and was 
more than ready to bless what it had so lately cursed. The 
effect of persecution cannot be weighed or measured ; and 
the spirit which produces many converts as the result of 
the death of one mart}^: is not unknown, even in modem 
days. 

Another act of Constantine the Great has made his name 
famous and influenced profoundly the story of the Roman 
Empire. 

It was he who removed the seat of power from Rome to 
Byzantium, and who erected upon the promontory on the 
Bosphorus, on the site of the ancient Greek town, the city of 
" New Rome " or Constantinople. So great and powerful did 
this become that it could never take an inferior place ; from 
henceforth it was to rank with Rome as one capital of a 
divided Empire. 

The position as well as the history of the city was unique. 
For more than ten centuries Constantinople was to stand as 
the bulwark of Europe againt incessant hammering from 
Eastern foes, to remain unmoved when the whole of the 
Western Empire was swept away. She was able to keep the 
Turk from overrunning Europe in later years, and thus to 
safeguard the newly born kingdoms from being crushed and 
dominated by an enemy, alien in civilization as in religion. 
Within her walls, up to the time of her fall in the middle of 
the fifteenth century, she preserved the treasures of Greek 
literature, the remnants of Roman civilization, at a time 
when both were threatened with extinction ; and thus be- 
came, even in her own destruction, the mother of a new era 
of civihzation for the West. 

The minor acts of Constantine, his reorganization of 
both the civil and the military systems, are overshadowed 
by these two vast achievements. He left the Empire strong 
and undivided at his death in 337, having earned for himself 
the title of the greatest of the Roman emperors. 

Within fifty years Theodosius, the last emperor to rule 
over the whole Empire, saw her prosperity at its height. From 
the Scottish shores in the west to the Euphrates in the east, 



THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 71 

from the coast washed by the North Sea to the deserts of 
Arabia and the Sahara, he presided over eighteen vast pro- 
vinces, each at a high stage of civilization. Beautiful cities, 
fine churches and cathedrals, public halls, baths, libraries, 
villas, and gardens were frequented by a people differing in 
race, colour, and tongue, but all alike proud to be accounted 
citizens of the Empire, and to obey a system of laws which 
it had taken four centuries to bring to perfection. 

And so the fourth century passes away in its glory ; and 
the fifth century, which was to see the utter break-up of this 
vast system, as far as the Western Empire was concerned, 
casts its shadow upon history. 

The Barbarian Invasions — The hordes of barbarians, whom 
the Romans call by the general term of " Germans," now 
pressed forward in a surging mass ; their steady movement from 
east to west had been checked by the barriers of the Empire, 
and those barriers now had to go. In the swamps and wood- 
lands of the northern and central parts of Europe they found 
free space for their activities, and they could not be restrained 
from overrunning the south and west. Some of them, 
indeed, had already tarried so long upon the borders of the 
Empire that they had invaded it •* not as savage strangers 
but as colonists," full of admiration for a system of govern- 
ment entirely lacking among themselves, while at the same 
time they despised the citizens who had lost the power of using 
it for their own protection. 

Such were the Visigoths under their ruler Alaric, who 
had passed his boyhood as a hostage in Constantinople. He 
came not as a barbarian, but as nominally a Christian, with some 
amount of education ; and had Theodosius fulfilled his promise 
of making him general of the Eastern part of the army, he 
might have come as the ally of Rome. As it was he became 
her most bitter foe. 

Macedonia and Greece were the first to be harried by him ; 
and only the position and strength of Constantinople saved 
the Eastern Empire from ruin. But it was upon Rome, 
not upon the city of Constantine, that Alaric had fixed 
his determined gaze ; for always in his ears sounded that 



72 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

mysterious prophecy, " Penetrabis ad Urbem " (Thou shalt 
penetrate to the City). 

And Rome was doomed. For even had Alaric and his 
Visigoths failed, there stood on her northern frontier vast 
numbers of " Germans " — Franks, Saxons, Burgundians, 
Allemanni, Vandals — ready to fling themselves upon the 
western half of the Empire. But Alaric did not fail, though 
he was hampered by an enormous host of non-combatants, 
seeing that the Goths carried their women, children, and 
goods along with them. For a while he was obliged to re- 
treat eastward, while the Vandals were overwhelming Gaul 
in one great wave of destruction. But Alaric was only 
biding his time. In the year 408 his army stood before the 
walls of Rome, waiting for famine and pestilence to do their 
deadly work within. In vain the Senate tried to frighten 
him with the numbers of their fighting men. " The thicker 
the grass, the more easily it is mown " was the grim answer 
of the Goth. 

But Alaric was a noble foe, and on this occasion risked a 
mutiny among his troops by his refusal to allow the city 
to be sacked. 

Two years later the bad faith of the " puppet " Emperor 
whom he had set upon the throne destroyed the last hope of 
mercy at the hands of Alaric the Goth. Although her public 
buildings for the most part escaped destruction, Rome was 
sacked and plundered. 

But within a year of that act of pillage it was noised abroad 
that Alaric the Conqueror was dead. 

To the Mediaeval World came the unwilling realization that 
the fall of Rome was final. " The great city has been over- 
thrown with the crash of a mighty slaughter," cried St. 
Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, in North Africa. And St. Jerome 
from Palestine echoed his cry: "The frame of the world is 
falling in pieces. What can be safe if Rome can fall ? " 

Yet for another fifty years the Empire of the West, in spite 
of renewed blows, managed to retain a feeble flicker of life. 

Although little permanent harm had been done to the 
structure of the city by these first waves of attack by the 



THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 73 

Goths, it might well have expected annihilation after the 
invasion of the Huns under Attila, the " Scourge of God." 
This terrible, half-human personality, hailing, with his savage 
hordes of misshapen and repulsive followers, from an Empire 
carved out of Asia, now advanced upon Europe. Before 
him cities fell one after another, and the hills and plains over 
which he passed whitened with the bones of slaughtered 
peoples. What could save the heart of the Empire from 
destruction at the hands of one of whom it has been said, 
" He touched nothing that he did not destroy " ? 

The first onrush of Attila chanced to be upon Gaul. 
Orleans would have fallen before it had not the Visigoths, who 
from conquerors had become settlers in that land, driven 
him back upon Troyes. Then, in the Mauriae Plain, a terrific 
battle followed between the Huns, " demoniac horsemen with 
flattened noses and small fierce eyes . . . whose ferocity had 
filled the world with dread," and the allied forces of Romans 
and Visigoths, fighting together against barbarism. Had 
Attila won the day, the fate of Western Europe would have 
been sealed, and the civilization of the Western World, ex- 
tinguished by the rule of the Tartar, could not have been 
revived for many a century. But, after a long day of 
desperate hand-to-hand fighting, the Hun was forced back 
across the Rhine, and one of the decisive battles of the world 
had ended in favour of a civilized Europe. Yet the Hun 
had not left his work undone ; and the whole of Gaul as far 
south as Orleans lay a desert of waste land. 

This was in 451. A year later Attila was in Italy, sweep- 
ing the fair cities of the Empire into one great dustheap of 
ruin and desolation. At length he stood before the walls 
of Rome. And there a marvellous thing was seen. There 
came from the city to meet this brutal conqueror a calm and 
dignified man dressed in the simple white robe of the Pontiff 
of Christendom. A strange parley must have been held 
between these two utterly different personalities ; and as the 
resolute hawk eyes of Leo the Great gazed upon the half- 
human countenance of the hideous and bloodstained dwarf, 
it may have been, as writers of the time declare, that the lower 



74 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

nature was awed and overcome by the spiritual force of the 
Pope. 

It is certain that Attila cared nothing for threats of 
excommunication, even if Pope Leo had thought fit to make 
them ; if it were not personal influence exercised over a 
superstitious character, we must look for the cause of 
Attila's withdrawal in some more prosaic fact, such as the 
sickness of his troops in the unhealthy marsh land round 
Rome. No such search is necessary, however, and the 
" Remember Alaric " of Leo the Great might well have 
carried dread to the heart of one whose only fear was that of 
death. 

At all events, he did withdraw, and Italy knew him no 
more. For in the next year he died a drunkard's death in 
his tent in the midst of the Hungarian plain that he had made 
his temporary abiding-place ; and in the internal struggles 
that ensued among his followers, his vast Empire broke to 
pieces. 

The whole episode of the Huns was a strange and signifi- 
cant interlude in the drama of Mediaeval Christendom, For 
twenty years both Eastern and Western Europe and almost 
the whole of Asia were terrorized by the appalling personahty 
of the Tartar emperor, whose name became for centuries 
synonymous with the idea of the Scourge of God, the dread 
of the whole world. In Scandinavian and Teutonic Uterature 
he still lives as the robber of the buried gold of Sigurd and as 
a hero of the Nibelungenlied. To this day the Magyars of 
Himgary trace their descent from his race ; but the most 
direct descendants of the Huns were the Seljukian Turks, of 
whom we shall hear later on. To us he stands as an example 
of the real weakness of mere brute force against the powers 
of organization and intellect. There had been wholesale 
destruction, it is true, while great provinces, paralysed with 
terror, had watched in helpless inaction. But the battle of 
the Mauriac Plain and the withdrawal of the Huns from 
Rome had shown that the mad fury of wild beasts could be 
overcome by the forces of mind and personality, even when the 
case seemed desperate indeed. 



THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 75 

Two years after the death of Attila it seemed as if even 
forces such as these could no longer save the doomed city of 
Rome. When the Visigoths had strengthened their hold over 
Gaul and Spain and, expelling the Vandals, the earlier con- 
querors, had driven them to form an Empire in Northern 
Africa, they were in reality preparing to deal the last blow 
at the heart of the Empire. For the Vandals, dissatisfied 
with the power they held in the Mediterranean so long as 
Rome evaded their sway, now appeared in a vast host before 
her walls. 

Weary with years and toil. Pope Leo no longer availed 
against the new and determined foe, and in 455 Rome was 
captured by the Vandals, while her nobles were carried off to 
North Africa as captives. Sacked and ruined, the phantom 
of the city that once had ruled the world lingered on for 
another twenty years. And then her wretched puppet king 
" Augustulus" — ^the " petty Augustus," as he was scornfully 
termed — was forced to abdicate by the Gothic chief, Odoacer, 
who insolently sent the imperial crown and robe to Constanti- 
nople as a sign that the Western Empire no longer existed. 

Causes of the Fall of the Roman Empire. — More interest- 
ing to us of to-day than the actual facts of the barbarian 
inroads are the causes which brought about the fall of this 
greatest of world empires. 

One underlying cause was no doubt the inadequacy of 
the army in face of the enormous masses of the foe. It must 
be realized that the armies of the Goths, Huns, and Vandals 
were no picked hosts, but whole nations in arms, which often 
overbore the forces of the Empire by sheer weight alone. 
On the other hand the barbarians were hampered by the very 
fact of their unwieldy masses, and especially by the wagon- 
loads of women and children and property which accom- 
panied them. 

The real cause of the undoubted weakness of the Roman 
army lay in the fact that it was now largely composed, not of 
citizens fighting for their homes and hearths, but of mercen- 
aries, often recruited from the barbarian colonists upon the 
borders. There was no citizen force upon which to fall back. 



76. A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

The people of the Roman cities were unwiUing to bear the 
burden of warfare, free " bread and games " had weakened 
the fibre of the manual workers ; luxury and the quest for 
pleasure as the one aim of life had completely transformed the 
old nobility ; and the steady decrease of the birth rate, always 
found in a decadent era, had dried up the source of material, 
either for leaders, or producers, or for the rank and file of the 
army. 

During these centuries, again, there had come about a 
marked decrease in the agricultural population. Tempted 
by high wages and a more luxurious standard of living, the 
tillers of the soil had migrated to the towns, leaving behind 
them the old sterling qualities of vigour and endurance which 
had formerly marked their race. 

Such were some of the conditions that brought about the 
destruction of the Western Empire. What that destruction 
meant it is difficult, even after the Great War of this century, 
fully to realize. 

While Rome had been expanding, her servile work, the 
burden of road and bridge building, fortifications, and har- 
bours, had been performed by her millions of slave prisoners. 
When this period came to an end and she herself was 
on the defensive, the slaves rose in revolt, and those who had 
been freemen were forced by economic conditions to take 
their place. Poverty led to famine, famine to plague. The 
middle-class citizens, crushed under an impossible burden of 
taxation, no longer tried to keep up a standard of citizenship ; 
and the Empire was threatened with what has been described 
as " a calamity far more terrible than any of the quick destroy- 
ing maladies to which nations are liable — a tottering, drivelling, 
paralytic longevity." ^ 

We have seen what an advanced state of outward pros- 
perity had been reached by the cities of Italy and Gaul during 
the fourth century. Long before the end of the following 
epoch all these cities lay in ruined desolation. Rome herself, 
after five terrible sieges, barely survived as a pile of derelict 
buildings that overlooked the unhealthy marsh created by 
^ Macaulay, The Romance of History 



THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 77 

the destruction of her aqueducts. Beyond her walls the 
fertile plains and fair hill cities of Etruria were now a deserted 
wilderness. Over all Northern Italy lay the blight of the 
breath of Attila and his Huns. 

Odoacer — Slowly and gradually a kind of faint revival 
awoke in the land when Odoacer formed a " kingdom of 
Italy," with himself as absolute ruler and Ravenna as the 
capital. But the Romans were now a conquered race, though 
not actually enslaved. The Goths, who alone were allowed 
to carry arms, who paid no taxes, who owned more than a 
third of Italy, were now their masters. The rest of the 
Empire was in no better case. Gaul was still stunned by 
the scourge of Attila ; Spain was entirely devastated ; in 
Northern Africa St. Augustine died at the moment that the 
Vandal hosts had surrounded the city of Hippo, which, with 
Carthage and Constantine, were all that were left of a once 
noble province of the Empire. Even in far-off Britain the 
effect of the fall of Rome left the country " a serpent -haunted 
wilderness, the country of the dead." 

Effects of the Barbarian Invasion — Enough has been 
said to show the ill-effects of the Barbarian invasion. There 
is something to be said on the other side. Centuries of 
luxury and soft living had, as we have seen, enfeebled the 
once vigorous citizens of the Empire ; the strong infusion of 
Northern blood, wild and undiscipHned though it was, restored 
to them the lost qualities of vigour and vitality. That 
mixture of the fearless courage and tenacity of the barbarian 
with the instinctive habits of law and discipline that marked 
the Roman citizen must have produced no despicable kind 
of character in those dark days of history. 

One other advantage of the break-up of the Empire can 
be still more clearly seen. In those years of weak Emperors, 
Rome, left to herself, would always have drawn an inflexible 
line between her citizens and the outside world, since the 
day was gone when she had been strong enough to " Romanize" 
all those who dwelt upon her borders. 

Now, when her Empire was broken up, the hordes of 
barbarians had their chance of sharing in the privileges of 



78 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

an organization that was to endure long after the fall of Rome. 
The invaders retained their own customs, it is true ; but 
gradually these became modified by Roman laws and Roman 
ideals. If the barbarian had conquered Rome in one sense, 
in another Rome conquered the barbarian. Even as early 
as the fifth century itself, that period of licence and destruc- 
tion, we hear the echo of the future in the words of a Gothic 
chief. 

" I have found by experience," he said, " that my Goths 
are too savage to render any obedience to laws, but I have 
also found out that without laws a State can never be a State. 
I have therefore chosen the glory of seeking to restore and to 
increase by Gothic strength the name of Rome. Wherefore 
I avoid war and strive for peace." 

But by far the most important effect of the inrush of 
Northern nations was the influence upon them of the greatest 
civiHzing power the world has ever known, the power of 
Christianity. We shall see better how this worked when the 
ferment of unrest that followed the fall of the Western Empire 
had settled down. 

Let us glance briefly at one or two of the outstanding 
features of the century that followed the last siege of Rome. 

The Dark Ages — It was for Europe a period of violence, 
lawlessness, and barbarism. For more than two centuries 
the Northern conquerors were to fight each other for the lands 
wrested from the Romans ; and these years were the true 
" Dark Ages " of History, since scarcely any records of them 
were ever kept. Over Gaul and Spain and Britain hung a 
thick cloud of gloom. All we know is that the one pre- 
vaiUng power was that of Force. 

But in Italy, owing to the intervention of the Emperor 
of the Eastern Empire — sometimes known as the Later 
Empire of Rome — ^the curtain is lifted on occasion, as was the 
case later on in what was to be known as the ICingdom of the 
Franks. 

Just as, on the first invasion of Italy by Alaric, the whole 
race of the Visigoths had migrated with him, so now the 
nation of the Ostrogoths, freed from the bondage of the 



THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 79 

Huns, moved under their leader, Theodoric, against Odoacer, 
the ruler of Rome, and made themselves masters of Italy 
in the year 493. 

The Kingdom of the Franks — In that same year an event 
took place farther to the West that was to have even more 
important consequences. The Franks of North-West Gaul 
had as their king one Clovis, who in that year married Clotilda, 
a Burgundian princess, whose father had ruled the south- 
west region of Gaul. This maiden was a Catholic, the daughter 
of a mother who had kept the true faith in the midst of Arian 
surroundings ; and her influence over her warlike husband 
must have been remarkable. For Clovis, finding himself on 
the point of being overwhelmed by the tribes of Allemanni, 
on what is now the border of Alsace, vowed to adopt the 
" faith of Clotilda " if he were preserved from defeat. Find- 
ing himself victorious, he asked for Christian baptism and at 
the same time ordered all his nobles to follow his example. On 
the Christmas Day of 496 Clovis, with three thousand knights, 
was received into the Catholic Church in the Cathedral of 
Rheims, and thus he became the first ruler in the whole of 
Europe to profess the faith that had its centre still unmoved 
in Rome. For at this period, it must be remembered, all the 
conquering races of the Empire, as well as most of the 
Emperors of the East, were either pagans or Arians — ^that 
is, they denied the doctrine of the Trinity. Only in Rome 
the Catholic Church, the one unchanging and stable con- 
stitution in the midst of a tottering world, though in a tiny 
minority, stood firm for the early faith. 

And now she could count one adherent, and that no 
unimportant ally. For the Franks, under the strong leader- 
ship of Clovis, rapidly extended their sway, driving back 
Burgundians and Allemanni and Visigoths ; so that at the 
end of the reign of Clovis, in 511, the Frankish Empire ex- 
tended over almost the whole of Gaul and ranked as the 
leading nation of the West. Her ruler was known as the 
" Most Christian King," his nation as the " eldest daughter 
of the Church." From it, in later days, was to emerge a 
hero-figure who absolutely dominated the mediaeval imagina- 



80 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

tion, and who was to found the Second Empire of the 
West. 

Theodoric the Ostrogoth (493-526) — Let us pass on to 
Italy, which we last saw in the grasp of Theodoric the Arian 
Ostrogoth. For thirty-three years (493-526) this remark- 
able man ruled the land with a tolerant justice amazing in 
one of his origin and race. His story cannot be told in detail 
here, but he interests us as a fine type of the barbarian who had 
been so strongly impressed by the methods and customs of 
the Romans, that he determined to adopt them in his new 
kingdom. In the face of his uncivilized hordes of followers 
this was no easy task ; nor was it easier to hold the balance 
true between conflicting beliefs in a land whose heart still 
beat from Rome as a centre. By his marriage with the sister 
of Clovis he made alliance with the only kingdom of the 
West that had yet emerged as a serious rival to his own ; 
through the marriage of his daughters he maintained a con- 
nexion with most of the other nations of the West — Bur- 
gundians, Visigoths, Thuringians, and Vandals. It was during 
his reign that the vigorous Northern influence first left its 
mark upon an enfeebled Italy. 

Justinian (527-565) — The year after the death of Theo- 
doric there steps upon the stage of history an Emperor of the 
Eastern Empire, Justinian by name, who is notable for two 
reasons, in his time a successful attempt was made to 
include Italy within the borders of his Empire ; and the code 
of Roman law which he drew up became the basis of the 
legislative system of Europe. The latter, because it was 
permanent, is a far more important fact than the more 
spectacular conquest of Italy. That, indeed, was the work, 
not of the Emperor, but of his marvellous general Belisarius, 
the Napoleon of the Mediaeval World. 

It took eighteen years of constant warfare to drive out the 
Ostrogoths, and after them the Franks, who had become of 
late years the plunderers of a doomed land. And when at 
length Italy was once again included under the title of the 
Roman Empire, she was but a ghost of her former self. All 
her cities, save Ravenna, had been plundered and ravaged ; 



THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 81 

the whole land lay a desolate waste, dotted here and there 
with piles of ruins. Rome herself, five times besieged, was a 
mere circuit of walls surrounding a heap of shattered buildings. 
Wild beasts made their homes where once a princely Roman 
held his court, and priceless treasures were buried under the 
dust and debris of a broken world. 

In a later chapter we shall see how this laid Italy open, as 
an easy prey, to a fresh band of invaders, men who belong to 
the stirring story of Charlemagne, the Emperor of the Second 
Empire of the West. 

Effect of the Christian Church — We can understand more 
clearly now the part played by the only institution that stood 
firm during this period of storm and stress. We have already 
seen how the Christian Church, with its seat of government 
at Rome, had commanded the respect and even the submission 
of Vandal and Goth alike. In the midst of the anarchy that 
threatened Europe during the two centuries that followed 
the fall of the Western Empire, the Church was the only 
power that was not entirely prostrate before the disaster of 
the times. It stood, indeed, as the one means of preserving 
all which was to survive out of the crumbling wreck of Roman 
civilization. Even apart from matters of faith, it was neces- 
sary to have a centre, strong in traditions of reverence and 
supremacy for the Western World ; and for this there stood 
the Papacy, with the figure of Leo commanding it in the 
fifth century, and that of Gregory in the sixth. Both popes 
earned the title of " the Great," and both dominated for a 
while the period in which they hved. And though for two 
hundred years they and their successors looked upon a 
desolated Europe and a dying civihzation, they took a noble 
revenge upon their foes. For the next five centuries they 
sent forth a ceaseless stream of missionaries, who carried 
not only a message of faith and hope to darkened souls, but 
also the torch of a civihzation that must otherwise have 
flickered out. Thus in the early part of the fifth century 
Ireland was converted by St. Patrick, sent by Pope Celestine. 
Towards the end of that century, as we have seen, King 
Clovis and his Franks were baptized, through the influence 
6 



82 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

of one who looked to Rome as her authority. In the sixth 
century Augustine came from Gregory the Great as the 
Apostle of England ; and later on a host of missionaries carried 
the Faith over Central and Western and Eastern Europe. 

And as Rome sent forth her missionaries to preach the 
Gospel of Christ, she also gave them a system of moral teach- 
ing, based on the principles of justice, honesty, and truth, 
which was bound to be the real foundation of civilization. 

Security of life and property, the mutual relationship of 
trust and confidence between man and man and between 
nation and nation, are included in the meaning of the word ; 
and this it was which, in closest connexion with the teachings 
of the Christian faith, was to tame savage humanity and 
civilize a barbarian world. It has been said that social well- 
being is but civilization in act, and to achieve this was not the 
least of the Church's aims. 

It was this that gave to the mind of Northern Europe a 
stirring, energizing, and life-giving impulse ; this that gradually 
put an end to a system of tyranny that bade fair to extinguish 
the poor and oppressed. In the days of pagan Rome it had 
been the custom to look upon the labouring classes as beings 
of an inferior mould. In the eyes of the Northern barbarian 
the soldier was of far more importance than the agriculturist, 
who was generally a slave. It was left for the Christian 
Church to insist on the equality of all men in the eyes of God, 
to open her sanctuary to the fugitive slave, to raise even those 
of low degree to the dignity of her priesthood ; and by the 
widespread influence of her religious Orders, to teach the 
beauty of learning, the dignity of labour, the glory of art 
and music and science. 



CHAPTER VII 
THE EMPIRE OF ISLAM 

(A.D. 622-1058) 

IN the story of the fall of the Roman Empire we have 
been concerned almost entirely with events which 
affected Western Europe. But it must not be forgotten 

that, since the days of Constantine, the Empire of the 
East, sometimes caUed the Later Roman Empire, held on its 
way almost unmoved by the battering of the Northerners at 
the gates of the West during the fifth and sixth centuries. 

From the beginning of the seventh century, however, the 
East was to be the arena of another struggle, destined to have 
an almost equally important influence upon the history of 
the world. 

It was, in fact, all to the good that this eastern branch 
of the Empire was roused, roughly enough, from the lethargy 
which had come in the train of a long period of luxury and ease. 

Heraclius (610-641) — ^The story centres at first in the figure 
of the Emperor Heraclius, whose colossal statue, found 
beneath the sea, dominates the modern town of Barletta, 
much as his personality dominated the Eastern World during 
this period. 

The first achievement of this young monarch, who called 
himself " the Roman Emperor and Sovereign faithful in 
Christ," was to set in order the chaotic muddle into which 
his dominion had fallen, and to build up an army and fleet 
fit to deal with the power that was already beginning to eat 
away his Empire. 

For, just as in the fifth century before the Christian era, 
the Persians had been the Masters of the East and the dreaded 

foe of the Balkan Peninsula ; so now, twelve centuries later, 

83 



84 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

they had seized the greater part of Asia Minor, overrun Syria, 
taken Jerusalem, and with it that reUc of the True Cross 
which was Christendom's most precious possession ; and now 
they were threatening the very heart of the Eastern Empire. 
The contempt with which Persia regarded the loose and 
disorganized realm of Heraclius can best be seen by a letter 
from the Persian king, Chosroes II, to Heraclius. It begins : 
" Chosroes, the noblest of the gods, king and master of the 
whole earth, to Heraclius, his vile and insensate slave. 

" Refusing to submit to our rule, you call yourself lord 
and sovereign, and, having gathered together a troop of 
brigands, you ceaselessly annoy us. Have I not then de- 
stroyed the Greeks ? You say you have trust in your God ; 
why, then, has He not delivered out of my hand Caesarea, 
Jerusalem, Alexandria ? And could I not also destroy 
Constantinople ? " ^ He goes on to promise " pardon and 
the necessaries of life " if Heraclius will give himself up, 
with his wife and children, to his tender mercies. 

The reply of the Emperor to this insult was to fling 
himself and his new-made army upon the fo© in six great 
campaigns, which ended in the complete overthrow of the 
Persian Empire. 

See him on that 14th of September 628, a day com- 
memorated ever since in the Calendar of Christendom as 
Holy Cross Day, riding through the Golden Gate of Con- 
stantinople in a chariot drawn by four elephants, in the midst 
of a crowd delirious with joy at the deliverance of their 
city from the foe that had kept all Asia in dread for so many 
centuries. See him alight at the great cathedral of St. 
Sophia, built by his predecessor Justinian, carr3dng with 
him the precious relic that had been restored to Christendom 
by his prowess. See him, finally, as the successful leader 
of what had been, in one sense, the first Crusade on behalf 
of the Cross against the infidel, carrying back the Cross in 
triumph to Jerusalem and placing it, amid scenes of inde- 
scribable reUgious fervour, within the Church of the Holy 
Sepulchre. 

^ Quoted in Prof. Bury's Later Roman Empire. 



THE EMPIRE OF ISLAM 85 

Then the glory fades away. Three years later the death 
of an Arabian prophet seer, scarcely known as yet to the 
outer world, let loose the most extraordinary whirlwind 
of conquest that mankind has ever known. Within the 
next ten years the Arabs, or Mohammedans, as they must 
now be called, had overrun Palestine and the whole of Syria, 
mastered Egypt, the granary of Constantinople, conquered 
Persia, and were preparing to force the gates of the capital 
of the Eastern Empire. 

Mohammed (570-632)— The story of the rise of the 
Mohammedan Empire is amazing in the suddenness, the 
swiftness, the success of its onset. For forty years there 
had Uved on the hillsides near the Arabian city of Mecca a 
man of thoughtful and meditative mind, once a poor camel 
driver, afterwards the husband of a rich widow. Almost 
unknown, Mohammed dwelt amid a people who had out- 
grown their earlier nature worship and had become, for the 
most part, a degenerate race given over to drinking, gambling, 
and evil lusts. For them civilization had but spoilt the 
simplicity of their nomad shepherd existence ; and the 
constant feuds between those who still lived the wild life 
of the desert and those who had settled on the south and 
west coasts of Arabia as traders prevented any idea of 
national unity. 

One thing alone they had in common, and that was their 
reverence for their sanctuary, the Kaaba at Mecca, where 
was preserved a small stone, originally white in hue, which 
was said to have fallen from heaven on the day that Adam 
and Eve were driven from the gates of Eden. This was the 
object of great yearly pilgrimages, and thus became a centre 
of trade to and from the Red Sea ; and thither, during the 
four months' truce held every year, the various tribes went up 
to buy and sell, and to worship with the only remnant of a 
faith that had once held " Allah," the God of their ancestors 
as of the Jews, in reverence, and which had now lapsed into 
the worship of idols. 

It may have been that the study of the various types 
of pilgrim traders and a keen intuition of their spiritual 



86 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

needs created in the mind of the unknown patriot an ideal 
of rehgion that was to place Mohammed among the " seers " 
of the world. Idol worship and the false beliefs of a bygone 
age must be swept away, and his countrymen must be con- 
verted to a new faith whose essence was " Islam " — complete 
submission to the will of God. To him the revelation had 
come in his mountain cave near Mecca, and by him the 
formula was passed on. " There is no God but AUah, and 
Mohammed is his prophet " became within a few years the 
creed of Arabia. The Mohammedan era dates from the 
year 622, when the seer himself was forced by unbelieving 
citizens to flee to Medina, where ten years later he was to die. 

The formula became the creed, but it also became the 
battle-cry of a people who had in their blood a passion for 
fighting. The " Koran," their Bible, containing the teaching 
of their prophet, lays as much stress upon the " religion of 
conquest " as upon the duty of prayer and almsgiving and 
of abstention from pork and wine. When a paradise of 
sensual ease was assured to all who fell fighting for the faith 
against unbeUevers, the Arab became a soldier to whom fear 
of death and retreat were alike unknown. 

Within ten years of Mohammed's death the ideal of 
Islam had completely taken possession of the Arab tribes ; 
and, in spite of their comparatively smaU numbers and poor 
equipment, we find them marching from their borders to 
join issue with the two most powerful nations of the world 
and to create a Mohammedan Empire in Western Asia. 

Mohammedan Conquests — ^The Persian Empire, already 
shaken to its foundations by the conquests of Heraclius, 
fell an easy prey to them, and before the middle of the 
seventh century they had wrested Syria from the Roman 
Empire of the East. Mesopotamia on the one hand, Egypt 
on the other, became their strongholds, and soon they were 
battering at the sea-gates of Constantinople. 

From the death of Heraclius in 641, for the next eight 
centuries, this terrible foe, fighting for a pohtical as well as 
for a rehgious ideal which bade fair to make them masters 
of the world, cast a shadow of incessant dread over the 



THE EMPIRE OF ISLAM 87 

Empires of the East and West. Again and again Con- 
stantinople was besieged by the forces of Islam and barely 
managed to hold her own. , ,„ , t- 

If she had failed to do so, the whole of Western Europe 
in the days of her greatest weakness and disruption, would 
have been submerged before this last great wave of emigra- 
tion from the East, and the seeds of Greek and Latm civiliza- 
tion, Uterature, law, and morals, as well as the faith ot 
Christendom, would have been utterly destroyed As it 
was, the once noble Empire of the East had shrunk by the 
end of the seventh century to such insignificant dimensions 
that Constantinople became almost the only refuge of the 
Western scholar, the only treasure-house of the art and litera- 
ture and culture of the ancient world of Greece and Rome. 

Meantime the Arabs, or Moslems as they were more 
generally called, were fast developing their own system of 
civiUzation at the same time as their conquests. North 
Africa, with its vast deserts, had been in the first instance 
a suitable abode for these children of the wild, who reck- 
lessly destroyed the city of Carthage and burnt Alexandna, 
with its famous library, to the ground; but they were an 
impressionable race, combining practical ability with extra- 
ordinarily high ideals, and they were by no means averse 
from adopting all that was best in the civihzations they 
destroyed From simple desert warriors they not only rapidly 
developed into exceedingly shrewd merchants since their 
swift conquests were continually opening up to them new 
routes for trade, but also into scholars and artists. 

Progress o! Islam-The period of the early Caliphate 
was the heroic age of Islam, and it reached its highest point 
Tn thl days of the'caliph Haroun Al Raschid in the last years 
of the eighth century (786-809). at • 7 ^o 

We all know that picturesque figure of the AraUan mghts 
of whom romance has made a legendary hero His was the 
irionality that made the glory of Islam m hose days 
^d even softened the view that Christendom took of the 
"Infidel " when Haroun sent to Charlemagne the keys of the 
Holy Places at Jerusalem. 



88 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

But the Caliph could show another face to the man who 
defied him without the power to carry out his defiance to the 
end. In those days tribute had been paid by an Empress of 
the Eastern Empire which her successor chose to repudiate 
in these terms : 

" Nicephorus, King of the Greeks, to Haroun, King of the 
Arabs. 

" The late Queen was too humble. She submitted to pay 
tribute to you when she should have exacted twice that sum 
from you. 

" Now a man speaks : therefore send back the tribute 
you have received — otherwise the sword shall be umpire 
between me and thee." 

To which the Caliph replied briefly : 

" In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful. 

*' Haroun Al Raschid, Commander of the Faithful, to 
Nicephorus the Roman dog. 

" I here read thy letter, son of an unbelieving mother. 
Thou shalt not hear, but shalt see my reply ! " 

And forthwith a huge force appeared before Constan- 
tinople, from which only the promise to pay tribute twice, 
instead of once a year, induced the Caliph to withdraw. 

In the days of Haroun, the city of Bagdad, then the 
capital of the Empire of Islam, was the brilliant centre of the 
Eastern World. All that collection of wisdom and learning, of 
magic lore and science, of poetry and art, which the ancient 
Eastern World had stored within her old cities, was now 
gathered into Bagdad as the inheritance of the conquering 
race. She was the centre of the splendid roads dotted with 
caravanserais which stretched in long network from China to 
Western Europe, from India to Constantinople. Merchants 
and ambassadors of every race thronged her courts, and were 
welcomed at the magnificent palace of the Caliph. Beautiful 
rose gardens, stately mosques, graceful bridges, and well- 
planned conduits made the city a dream of beauty, through 
which wended the vast caravans laden with the silks of 
China, the furs of Siberia, the spices of India, and the leather 
goods of Spain. 



THE EMPIRE OF ISLAM 89 

The trade of the sea was also in Mohammedan hands, and 
while a thriving commerce with India and China was main- 
tained, their warships rode unchallenged through the Medi- 
terranean, and made a conquered Crete the base of their 
pirate raids upon the coasts of Greece and Italy. 

The city of Bagdad was as famous for her learning as for 
her commerce. Scholars and poets were always sure of a 
welcome at Haroun's court whatever their creed might be. 
For tolerance and freedom of thought were the main character- 
istics of the Caliph, and a new idea the passport to his favour. 
A strange medley of intellects was found within the city, 
where the imagination of the Persian, the mysticism of the 
Hindu, the idealism of the Greek, and the keen common sense 
of the Arab were intermingled. Bagdad was the home of 
logic, of philosophy, of mathematics ; her chemists cherished 
the hope of manufacturing gold, her astrologers were con- 
sulted for their knowledge of astronomy and natural science 
as well as for their magic lore. She was the university of the 
Middle Ages, with Schools of Medicine, of Philosophy, of 
Music, of Literature. And all this was in existence at a time 
when Europe, unlettered and ignorant, was only just beginning 
to recover from the shock of the barbarian invasions. 

The reason of the vast and swift expansion of the forces of 
Islam is interesting from the economic point of view. It was 
the custom of the Arab caliphs, while leaving to the conquered 
lands their own methods of administration, to exact regular 
tribute from the conquered people. There was no compulsion 
to adopt the new faith ; a choice of taxation or conversion 
was always given in the earlier years of the movement. 

But after a while the material advantages of submission to 
Islam became so evident that a vast stream of converts 
adopted the faith of their conquerors, and the number of tax- 
payers became exceedingly small. The more religious their 
subjects, the less money flowed into the coffers of the caliphs. 

Then came reforms. One ruler imposed a poll-tax on 
believers and unbelievers alike ; another raised money from a 
ground-tax paid by all property owners, and levied tribute on 
the new-made converts. By this time the political andeconomic 



90 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

side was even more important than the reHgious aspect, and 
the success of Islam, material and otherwise, was assured. 

Islam in Spain — No wonder, then, that in the early days of 
the eighth century we find her forces threatening the gates of 
Europe. Constantinople had repulsed them, but there were 
other means of entrance. 

Troops of North African Moors, who had readily adopted 
the faith of Islam rather than pay tribute, were sent as an 
advanced guard into Spain under the leadership of one Tarik, 
who has given his name to the strait over which he passed 
(Gibraltar : the cliff of Tarik, " Gebal al Tarik "). 

In Spain he found a Gothic kingdom which had known 
peace so long that it had lost the art of war. Grimly the 
Moslem gazed at King Roderick, " last of the Goths," 
riding into battle clad in robes of silk and gold, in an ivory car 
drawn by two white mules, and grimly again lent ear to the 
news that a few hours later this degenerate successor of a 
fighting race had been drowned as he fled from the field across 
the River Guadalquivir. From that time his Visigoths were 
scattered, and Southern Spain was in the hands of Islam. 

Two years later the only remnant of the Gothic rule in 
Spain was to be found in the northernmost provinces of that 
land. The Moors had overflowed the rest of the peninsula, set 
up their capital at Cordova, and were living on terms of peace 
with the mixed native population of Roman and Gothic descent. 

Islam in France — A further attempt to conquer the 
neighbouring land of Gaul proved a failure. The Franks, 
hardened by years of conflict, and led by their " Hammer 
Chief," Charles Mart el, were able to hold the gates of Tours 
against the invaders. In this decisive battle, the former 
stood " inflexible as a block of ice " against their foes. Only 
in Southern France did the Moslems maintain their hold for a 
while upon some of the ancient Roman cities and the fortresses 
at the foot of the Pyrenees, remaining there as a thorn in the 
flesh of the Frank, and the " typical foe " of mediaeval France. 

Islam in Italy — Soon after the beginning of the ninth 
century we find the mark of Islam left upon Italy. In the 
year^Say the Saracens had made one of their most important 



THE EMPIRE OF ISLAM 91 

conquests when they took Sicily from the Byzantine governor, 
and thus were able to set up a post from which they could 
seize opportunities of conquests in Italy. 

From the " Saracen towers," whose ruins still mark the 
coast between Naples and Palermo, the Saracens sighted the 
approach of hostile fleets and prepared to meet them. Later 
they pushed inland, and before the middle of the ninth cen- 
tury were taking a prominent part in the incessant feuds 
between the towns and provinces of Italy. Rome herself, 
on one occasion at least, was not free from their piratical 
raids, one of which was only frustrated by the united action 
of the western seaports against the invader. Again and 
again they appear as robber bands on Italian soil, though 
meantime, under their rule, Sicily was by no means behind 
the rest of the world in progress. It was not until the end of 
the eleventh century (1091) that they were finally driven out 
from all parts of Italy by the Norman invasion. 

We have seen them as the freebooters of Europe, but it 
must be remembered that in acting thus they were no worse 
than their neighbours on every hand. Robbery and piracy, 
raids by which men, women, and children were carried off 
into slavery, were commonplace events of the Dark Ages of 
history. On the other hand, the Saracen, whenever he gained 
a footing on European soil, left behind him a legacy of culture 
that went far to balance the evil he did in his piratical raids. 
It was of a different character from that left by Greece and 
Rome, but, during the ^years that the latter were wellnigh 
extinct, it filled the gap made by the Gothic invasions by 
raising a valuable standard of civihzation in a barbarian world. 
In the very midst of her world renown, however, we hear 
the note of failure sounding in the ranks of Islam. For the 
free life of the desert, not the culture and habits of town life, 
was the only natural element for the original race from which 
Islam had sprung. " A tree swayed by the wind is dearer to 
me than this lofty castle. ... A piece of bread in my desert 
home tastes better than the daintiest sweetmeat. ... I long 
for my home in the desert. No palace can take its place." 
This was the true heart-cry of the Arab, whom circum- 



92 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

stances had made the successful trader, the wealthy merchant 
of the city ; and after the death of Haroun the real weakness 
that existed beneath the brilliant outward show began to 
appear. 

Gradually the vast empire began to break up. Other powers 
appeared on the horizon. A revived Persia made itself head of 
the Mohammedan world at the end of the tenth century ; and 
fifty years later the Seljukian Turks ruled the Empire of Islam. 

The Seljukian Turks — The advent of this race was to 
exercise a powerful influence over the Mediaeval World. From 
the hills and plains of Turkestan the Turks descended in a 
flood upon the cities of the Mohammedans, much as did the 
barbarians upon Europe five centuries earlier. Quickly ab- 
sorbing the religion of the conquered race, these Turks showed 
themselves strong, if narrow-minded, rulers, restoring order 
to the confused and dissipated Moslem World, and, settling 
down rapidly among its inhabitants, were soon accepted by 
the Moslems as their chieftains. When Asia Minor, after 
the year 1071, passed under their rule, the little power still 
exercised by the Empire of the East vanished for ever. For 
the invaders broke up the feudal system, under which the 
cities had been held by the Greek nobles, and gave the land, 
devastated by Persian or Arab raids, to a people who had 
for long years degenerated into serfs. So the Moslem was 
allowed to do what the Christian in his blindness had declined, 
since the chivalric spirit awakened by the Crusade had come 
too late to save the Roman Empire of the East. 



EXERCISES 

1. Trace the rise of the empire of Islam. 

2. Show by a sketch map the extent of this empire in the 
tenth century. 

3. Give a description of Bagdad in the days of Haroun Al 
Raschid, and compare it with any European city of that period 
in which you are interested. 

4. Give your own ideas as to the underlying causes of the 
rapid rise of the Mohammedan Empire. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE NEW NATIONS 
(a.d. 600-900) 

AS the gloom of the Dark Ages fades into the dawn 
of Mediaeval Europe, certain groups of new nations 
emerge from the welter of races that had wandered 
throughout Asia and Europe during the past five 
centuries. 

The most important of these, as far as history is con- 
cerned, was the Teutonic race, whose origin must be sought 
far away among the Aryan people of a prehistoric Asia. From 
this sprang Goths and Vandals, Angles, Jutes and Saxons, 
Franks, Burgundians and Lombards, Vikings and Normans, 
besides the other tribes known under the general name of 
" Germans," which were to remain as permanent occupants 
of Central Europe. 

To the East, along the Danube shores, the fierce Slavs, of 
Aryan, though not of Teuton, descent, pressing hard upon 
the heels of the latter in the march of invasion, stayed their 
course and settled down in lands now known as Russia and 
Serbia. In the latter region they presently became the vassals 
of the yet fiercer tribe of the Bulgarians. 

These last were of Tartar descent, closely akin to the 
Huns ; and with Magyars, Finns, and other tribes of the 
Danube land§, belonged to the Mongolian race, from which 
sprang that tribe of Turks which was to flood the world of 
Islam. A few centuries later we shall see the formation of a 
second Mongolian Empire under that master spirit Genghis 
Khan, an Empire that was to stretch from the Danube to the 
Yellow Sea, and from the White Sea to the Persian Gulf; 

while in the far-distant Eastern waters we shall see emerging 

93 



94 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

from the obscurity of their early history the people of the 
distant islands of Japan. 

Let us, to begin with, follow the development of the 
Teutonic tribes which were to make their influence felt, if not 
paramount, in every part of Europe. 

Note first their steady movement to the West, a movement 
which presently brought some of their wandering tribes to 
the coast barrier of the North Sea, and forced them to settle 
for a while on the bleak lands round the Baltic. From there 
they were pushed on, either by growth of numbers or by the 
relentless pressure of other Teutonic tribes in the rear. 

From the middle of the fifth century we find them swarm- 
ing over the seas in their light boats to invade the land of 
Britain under their various tribal names of Jutes and Angles 
and Saxons. There they were to experience during the eighth 
century a fresh onslaught from the yet more northerly tribes 
of Scandinavia, who, as the Northmen or Vikings, were to 
exercise such an important influence over Western Europe. 

The Lombard Invasion — During the sixth century the 
Lombards advanced from another quarter of Europe, along 
the Danube frontier by the old, well-trodden path into Italy, 
seized the land north of the River Po, and set up their capital 
at Pa via. From there, for two centuries (568-774), they 
threatened the rest of Italy, and actually conquered large 
portions in the centre and South. In spite of the fact that 
they absorbed the language and customs of the conquered 
race, the Lombard invaders never ceased to be regarded as 
dangerous enemies ; and it was to check their further advance 
that Charlemagne, as wiU be seen, was summoned to Italy. 

One important result of this Lombard invasion was as 
follows. Through their conquests, Italy, which was stiU nomin- 
ally under the rule of the Roman Emperor at Constantinople, 
was split up into various disconnected parts, some in the hands 
of the Lombards, others ruled by the Pope as States of the 
Church. The authority of the Emperor was a dead letter, 
and hence the tendency increased for the separated districts 
to break up into small states, some under Lombard rule, 
some independent, some directly under the authority of the 



THE NEW NATIONS 95 

Church, all of which were but loosely held together by their 
allegiance to the head of Christendom in the person of the 
Roman pontiff. Later, when the Normans made their ap- 
pearance in Southern Italy, we get another cause of disruption 

in the land. 

The Kingdom o£ the Franks— In these years, however, 
the race that counted most among the new-born nations was 
that of the Franks. No doubt they owed their pre-eminence 
largely to the fact that they had been the first Teutonic race 
to embrace the Cathohc faith in an age when most of the 
new-comers had adopted the Arian heresy. This fact had 
certainly gained them the full support of the Church. 

But the Frank had already won a name for valour on the 
battle-field. We have seen how Clovis had made himself 
master of Roman Gaul, driven the Allemanni tribes from 
Alsace, the Visigoths from Aquitaine, and made the Bur- 
gundians of the Rhone pay tribute. After that, he and his 
successors turned Eastwards, and overran Bavaria and Thur- 
ingia, till the " Empire of the Franks," the widest Empire ever 
founded by a Teutonic race, stretched from the shores of the 
Bay of Biscay to the River Inn, and from the Pyrenees to the 
River Rhine. Not that it ever was a united kingdom, but 
rather a number of principalities, ruled by Clovis and his 
successors, who were regarded as chieftains by the practically 
independent tribes of what is now Germany, and as kings by 
the subject races in Gaul. 

The Carolingians (A.D. 751)— The eighth century saw a 
definite change in this respect. The heirs of the Une of 
Clovis had earned at this time the tifte of the " do-nothing " 
kings, and had left their authority almost entirely in the hands 
of certain officials known as " Mayors of the Palace." 

One of these, Charles Martel, the " Hammer," had won 
renown for himself as the victor at Tours, the battle which 
closed the gates of Gaul to the conquering hosts of Islam. 
His son, Pepin, dethroned the last of the Merovingian " do- 
nothings," and by the hands of Pope Stephen II was anointed 
"king by the Grace of God," the founder of the famous 
Carohngian dynasty, and the first to make the Frankish tribes 



96 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

of the Lower Rhine the acknowledged rulers of the whole of 
the scattered Empire. 

This was in 751. Five years later the Lombards were 
hammering at the gates of Rome and harassing every part of 
Italy by their incessant attacks. It was but natural that 
Rome, rapidly becoming independent of the rule of the 
Emperor of the East, should, by the mouth of her Chief 
Bishop, call for help to the nation that had now held the 
Catholic faith, nominally at least, for two centuries ; a nation, 
moreover, that had aided the conversion of Germany by the 
generous help given to the English Boniface, the missionary 
sent from Rome to the heathen tribes of that land. 

Pepin at once struck two rapid and effective blows, 
which, though they served rather to stun than to destroy 
the Lombard power, added a considerable portion of Italy 
lying between Ravenna and Rome to the districts which 
now began to be called the Papal States. 

But the real conqueror of the Lombards was the man 
whose personality was to dominate Europe for the next 
half-century, and the imaginations of Europeans for a very 
much longer period. 

Charlemagne (771-31^) — At the repeated summons of 
Pope Hadrian, this hitherto unknown chieftain, Charles, 
son of Pepin and " King of the Franks," swept down from 
the Alps upon Italy, completely broke up the Lombard 
Empire, and having taken prisoner Desiderius, the Lombard 
king, assumed the famous Iron Crown,^ and made Northern 
Italy (Lombardy) a part of his dominions. 

This was but the overture to a long drama of successful 
conquest. His next achievement was to crush the heathen 
tribes of a Saxony in revolt, and to command them to accept 
either Christianity or death. A faith thus rudely forced 
upon a people, though the method was common enough 
in those days, could scarcely have had much spiritual or 
moral effect, and long years of constant warfare were to 

^ The Iron Crown, given by Pope Gregory I to the Lombard king 
on his conversion, was so called because a scrap of iron, believed to be 
a nail of the True Cross, was inserted in the golden circlet. 



THE NEW NATIONS 9t 

elapse before these rugged tribes could be considered either 
conquered or Christian. But still the religious ideal, how- 
ever crudely presented, became eventually the most effective 
bond of union ; and when, at length, by the heroic efforts 
of the missionaries sent from Rome, as well as by the rough- 
and-ready methods of Charles, the nations had accepted 
the Christian faith, civilization as usual followed hard in its 
wake. Towns, schools, bishoprics were to be found at the 
beginning of the ninth century in a land that had been sunk 
in a state of almost primitive savagery ; and a Saxon peasant 
was to produce, somewhere about the year 830, a Christian 
poem founded on the life of Christ that, as the Heliand, stands 
conspicuously as a landmark of Early Teutonic literature. 

Meantime Charlemagne had led his victorious army farther 
to the east, where the Avars, descendants of the Huns, had 
pushed forward to the Danube from their Caspian home. 
In the Danube plains, after years of hard fighting, the 
Prankish king broke at last the famous " Ring " or Camp 
of Chieftains, and so impressed the savage leaders with the 
force of his arms that they declared themselves willing to 
accept both the supremacy and the religious faith of one 
who could fight so well. 

Most famous, perhaps, among the long series of his con- 
quests, is the stand made by Charles against the Moors, the 
champions of Islam, who had begun again to harass the 
Christian chieftains of the region of the Pyrenees. Anyone 
who conquered a Mohammedan was sure of his laurels ; and 
the eyes of Christendom gazed proudly at the king who had 
driven back the forces of Islam across the River Ebro, and 
added a large part of Northern Spain to the Frankish Empire. 
Yet even he was not to depart unscathed ; for on his return 
through the Pyrenees the rear of his army was attacked by 
foes hidden among the mountains, and his nephew Roland, 
henceforth to be the darling of mediaeval romance, was found 
dead by the avenging host of Franks which swept back upon 
the foe at the sound of the hero's horn. More interesting, 
if less romantic, is the fact that in this campaign Charle- 
magne actually fought in alliance with an Arab king against 
7 



m A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

his Arab foe, the first, but not the last instance of a Christian 
uniting his forces with an unbehever against a common 
enemy. 

Meantime fresh troubles had broken the long peace which 
Charles had given to Italy, and the eyes of Pope Leo III 
naturally turned again to the Frankish king for help. Sedition 
had broken out within the walls of the Holy City herself, and 
the person of the Pope had been in serious danger. Wounded 
and left for dead, Leo III managed to escape from Italy and 
fled to the camp of Charles, who received him with cordial 
respect and affection, and sent him back to Rome under the 
protection of an armed force that quickly put an end to the 
ambitions of the traitors. 

The incident only served to hasten a movement that had 
been long in the minds of King and Pope. 

The one thing that had remained intact in a broken and 
disintegrated Europe was the ideal of the Christian Church, 
and that in spite of the blows of foreign invaders and the 
treachery of her own sons. But in order to strengthen this 
ideal, as well as to give the new-born nations a central rally- 
ing point such as had already proved so signal a success in 
the Mohammedan worli, the political unity of the Empire 
must also be asserted. It was no use to look to the weak 
rulers of Constantinople for a lead in the movement, for 
already there were signs of sharp dissension between the 
Pope of Rome and the Patriarch of Constantinople. So the 
Eastern part of the Empire was ignored, and a step was taken 
that becomes the central event in the Mediaeval World. 

The Second Empire of the West — On Christmas Day 
A.D. 800, during Mass in the ancient basilica of St. Peter 
at Rome, Charles, kneeling on the steps of the high altar 
in the dress of a Roman patrician, was solemnly crowned 
by Pope Leo III with the diadem of the Caesars ; while the 
immense crowd of onlookers shouted " Life and victory to 
the great and peace-giving Emperor Charles Augustus, 
crowned by God." 

Outside the great building, so typical of the strength and 
stern simplicity of Rome, the Franks took up the cry. " In 



THE NEW NATIONS 99 

that shout was pronounced the union, so long in preparation, 
so mighty in its consequences, of the Roman and the Teuton, 
of the memories and the civiUzation of the South with the fresh 
energy of the North " (Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire). 

Eleven years later Byzantium also acknowledged the 
supremacy of Charles, and received in return Venice, soon to 
become the commercial gateway between East and West. 

But the separation of the two parts of the Empire was 
now complete, and was only emphasized by the great schism 
of the eleventh century, by which the Eastern Church, with 
its centre at Constantinople, broke away from the West 
on a point of doctrine, and henceforth became an independent 
church. 

Effect of the Second Empire of the West— The Second 
Empire of the West was destined to endure only for a brief 
period, and to break up almost entirely a few years after its 
founder's death in 814. But the ideal which it represented 
was to remain. 

All through the Middle Ages, aided by the essential 
unity of the Western Church, this ideal is constantly to be 
found. The spirit of cosmopolitanism seen throughout 
Europe until the middle of the fifteenth century was its out- 
come. For many a long year the local idea of loyalty to 
province or monarch was merged in the homage paid to the 
head of Christendom and also to the Emperor. 

It was these two forces — the Papacy and the Empire — 
that prevented Europe from splitting up into a number of 
little states under the " provincial " spirit of Feudalism ; 
and though the influence of the Emperor was to decline after 
the year a.d. iooo, still it had not failed to do a work which 
the firmly established ideal of a united Christendom was then 
strong enough to carry on alone. 

We can find the outward signs of this ideal of unity in the 
growth of Gothic architecture, in later years, in all parts of 
Western Europe ; in the rise of universities in which were found 
scholars of every nation of the West ; in a cosmopolitan art ; 
and in a literature which claimed Charlemagne and Roland, 
Arthur and Coeur de Lion as its heroes, whatever might be the 



100 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

language in which their deeds were sung. One language, 
Latin, became the learned tongue of Europe ; while its 
daughter, French, under various forms of dialect, became the 
common spoken language of the governing classes in every 
Western nation of the Continent. 

Lastly we notice one more effect of the Coronation of 
Charlemagne upon the Western World. The Pope had made 
tne Emperor ; thenceforth his was the power to unmake 
where he had made. Hence arose the beginnings of that 
long feud between the spiritual power and the temporal, 
which was to keep Europe in a ferment during so many 
years of the Middle Ages. 

But in the days of Charlemagne these things were as yet 
unknown. His was the colossal task of holding together a 
vast Empire, of which the only bond at that time was an 
ideal imperfectly realized, often wholly ignored. And the 
greatness of the man stands out even more when we see him 
as the Prankish King, full of vital energy and enthusiasm for 
the civilization of every part of his Empire, than when we 
gaze upon the crowned Emperor in Rome. His great bridges, 
his fine roads, his plan for a waterway that was to join the 
Rhine with the Danube, were all part of his ideal. Mission- 
aries journeying among the wild Teutonic tribes of Central 
Europe were sure of his assistance and protection. The 
administration of justice was secured by placing a governor 
or " count " over every district, who was obliged to hold a 
" county " court every month to hear the grievances of the 
oppressed. And, wisely enough, he did not attempt to force 
new legal codes upon his Teuton subjects, but based his 
*' capitularies," as they are called, upon the popular laws of 
the various tribes, whilst allowing the civil law of Rome to 
exist along with them, just as the " Church " Latin was used 
as well as the dialects of the people. 

Perhaps his most important gift to the European world 
was that of education. Within his " School of the Palace " 
the Lombard Paul taught history, and Peter of Pisa grammar, 
to the King and to his children ; from the University of 
York came Alcuin the English scholar, to found the famous 



THE NEW NATIONS 101 

School of Tours, and to become the tutor of the Emperor's 
young sons. No longer could mediaeval Europe, even in its 
darkest corners, utterly despise letters when so renowned a 
prince became their votary, though another century was 
to pass before an influence of quite a different kind was to 
arouse a real desire for learning. 

In the year 814 Charlemagne's work was finished, and 
the greatest figure of mediaeval history was buried under 
the magnificent church built by him at Aix-la-Chapelle. 

Almost immediately, under his successors, the Empire of 
the West began to break up, and, in the period of unrest 
that followed, it seemed for a while as though his grand ideal 
had perished. For a new power had arisen in Europe, a 
power that was all on the side of disruption and anarchy 
in these earlier years, although in later days it was to develop 
a strong and well-disciplined nation. 

The Northmen in Europe — This nation was that of the 
Northmen, the last of the Teutonic migrants to advance as a 
wave upon Europe and to swamp a large part of the Empire 
of the West. Long before the days of Christendom these 
men had ploughed their cold northern shores and sailed their 
black boats over their stormy Arctic seas ; and years before 
Charlemagne had been crowned as Emperor, their trading 
adventurers had brought word of the rich lands of the South 
and West to which they had taken their furs and walrus' 
teeth, and inflamed other minds to go thither in the search for 
wealth. The ordinary ways of commerce did not appeal to 
a people fierce and restless by nature, fond of romantic 
adventure, utterly fearless by sea or land. As plunderers 
and freebooters they sailed forth from their barren shores, 
and the great Charles himself is said to have wept with rage 
at the story of their daring inroads upon the Baltic coasts of 
Northern Frankland and Friesland, lamenting that he could 
boast of no followers who would in like manner dare the 
stormy waters. 

Soon they grew bolder still, descending like an avalanche 
upon the coasts of England, sailing up the mouths of the 
Elbe and Rhine, making Russia and Greenland their hunting- 



102 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

grounds. In vain did Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne, 
send missionaries to Scandinavia to try to convert these 
terrors of Christendom. Some effect was made upon Den- 
mark, but the country as a whole remained heathen, and it 
was as heathens that the Danes descended upon England 
in the ninth century and made large part of it their own. 

But later in that century it was the fertile soil and pleasant 
climate of the Frankish lands that most appealed to the 
Vikings. In those days the north-western portion of the 
Frankish Empire was split up into various petty kingdoms, 
such as those of Paris, of Burgundy, of Lorraine. The first 
of these, comprising the land between the Loire and the 
Seine, was to emerge later as the Kingdom of France ; 
Lorraine, which then included the modern Belgium, and 
Burgundy remained as independent kingdoms acknowledging 
the overlordship of the King of Paris. South of the Loire 
the country was ruled by various powerful counts, who had 
almost entirely thrown off their allegiance to King or 
Emperor. 

To the enterprise of an invading host of sturdy Northmen, 
a land so divided proved an easy prey. Coming first as 
settlers along the shores on both sides of the Loire, and 
venturing on their marauding expeditions even as far south 
as the coasts of Spain and Italy, they presently appeared as 
unmistakable invaders. 

Under their leader, Rolf or RoUo, they descended upon 
Northern France and founded the city of Rouen — the town 
of Rou or Rollo — on the ashes of the former settlement. 
By the end of the tenth century the northern district of the 
Frankland had become Normandy, the land of the Northmen, 
and the invaders had become natives of the soil. 

Already they had made permanent settlements in Ireland, 
where Dublin and Limerick were founded by them ; the 
islands that fringe the coast of Scotland were entirely under 
their rule, Iceland and Greenland among their most flourishing 
colonies, and even America was not beyond their limit. 
But their most important influence was over a district, then 
inhabited by Slavonic tribes always at war with one another 



THE NEW NATIONS 103 

which was to be the future Russia. It was on the occasion 
of one of these quarrels, in the middle of the ninth century, 
that Rurik the Northman is said to have been invited, with 
his two brothers, all of the Rotsi or Russi family, to rule over 
Russia and so keep the peace. 

Russia — The tradition is vague and obscure ; but it may 
be that these heroes gave their name to the province of 
Novgorod, and ruled it until the end of the sixteenth century. 
Certainly Scandinavian names are commonly found in Russia, 
and the adventurous influence of the Northmen must have 
done much to open the channels of communication between 
the West of Europe and this great unknown region of Eastern 
Europe. Another link of communication was the conversion 
of Russia, during the eleventh century, to Christianity. 
Tradition says that Vladimir, Rurik's descendant, desiring a 
new faith, sent ambassadors to the chief representatives of 
the CathoHc Church in Rome, of the Greek Church in Con- 
stantinople, of the faith of the Jews, and of that of Islam. 
Dazzled by the splendour of the ritual at St. Sophia, now 
in schism from the Church of Western Christendom, these 
envoys reported so strongly in its favour that its doctrines 
became the faith of Russia. The fact that Vladimir at this 
time had married the sister of the Emperor of the Eastern 
Empire had probably much more to do with the ruler's 
decision to make the religion of Russia that of the Eastern 
Church. 

These various waves of invasion, combined with the fact 
that the Empire was now broken up and in the hands of 
a number of petty rulers, all fighting for territory, and quite 
unrestrained by any great central government save the 
vaguely comprehended influence of the Catholic Church, 
had plunged the Europe of the ninth and tenth centuries 
into a state of inconceivable anarchy and confusion. 

The chief feature of this period is the growth of the spirit 
of Feudalism in Europe. Its rapid development was due, 
no doubt, to the need of opposing the Viking hordes by 
something more permanent and forceful than an " armed 
levy" of the population. Mounted soldiers, well-trained 



104 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

lighters, were necessary, and so were fortified cities and bridges 
and castles. The fortress castle changed the whole character 
of the roving robber chieftain into that of the responsible 
noble, and placed him as a leader and ruler over the people 
beneath his walls. 

Yet still the Feudal system maintained an atmosphere of 
violence, which had its outcome in the marauding bands of 
freebooters who kept all Europe in panic. These did but 
reflect the spirit of their rulers who fought for kingdoms or 
principalities ; but it seemed clear that a passion for ruin 
and destruction was everywhere rife, and that an ordered 
method of life was an impossible ideal. 

Even the influence of the Christian Church, which had 
kept the Europe of earlier days from utter disruption, seemed 
to have lost its power, and, when neither the crown of the king 
nor the loaf of the labourer was safe for any length of time 
from the hands of robbers, it seemed worth while neither to 
rule justly nor to labour for daily bread. When ail were 
content to destroy rather than to construct, the dignity of 
honest labour became a lost ideal. 

Nor do we find the system of Feudalism, with all its 
evils, opposed by the Church of those days. For in those 
troublous times the bishop had to handle the sword as well 
as the missal, and secular force bade fair to take the place 
of the spiritual bond of old. Yet scarcely two centuries after 
the death of Charlemagne the first faint dawn of a vast 
impulse towards better things was seen by those who still 
had hopes of a brighter future. 

The first indications of reform came from the direction of 
Cluny, a Benedictine monastery founded in Burgundy by a 
few men who hoped to live within its walls a life more in 
accordance with the ancient ideals of Christianity than was 
possible in a world at strife. 

By a curious paradox, it was the very men who withdrew 
from the world who were to teach that world how to live 
aright. These reformed Benedictines, in the spirit of their 
first founder, a spirit of " service instead of destruction, of love 
rather than strife," set before the Western World an ideal so 



THE NEW NATIONS 105 

attractive and in such accord with sound common sense, that 
it brought forth in course of time not only a great revival of 
religion, but also a far higher level of civilization than the new 
Europe had yet known. " Every Benedictine community 
stood for one thing in Europe ; it preached the sacred dignity 
of labour and the hatefulness of destruction. In an age when 
men counted their manhood by the amount they could destroy, 
when their pastime, as their pride, was to wreck, or to prevent 
others from wrecking them, the rule which commanded handi- 
work as necessary to the soul's health reminded an astonished 
world of the dignity of labour." ^ 



EXERCISES 

1 . Trace the origin of two of the modern European nations. 

2. Account for the predominance of the " Kingdom of the 
Franks." 

3. Show the effect upon Europe of : (i) The Viking In- 
vasions ; (2) Feudalism ; (3) The Second Empire of the West ; 
(4) The Lombard Invasion ; (5) The Influence of Charlemagne ; 
(6) Monasticism. 

^ A. C. Welch, Anselm and His Work. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE EASTERN WORLD IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

(a.d. 900-1300) 

WHILE the Western World of Europe had been 
fighting its way through a period of disruption and 
confusion, the East, in a series of movements 
slower, though no less momentous, than those of 
the West, had been shaping the history of the world. 

Some of these movements were to bring East and West 
into close touch during the centuries that followed the rise of 
the new nations of Europe. During this period, for the first 
time, we shall see the stored-up learning and philosophic 
spirit of the ancient Eastern World brought to bear upon the 
raw civilization of the West. But before we read how this 
came to pass, let us pass right across the great continent of 
Asia and look for a moment at the development of a little 
nation destined in the far future to play an important part in 
the shaping of the world of men. 

Japan — The islands of Japan, volcanic in origin and 
highly favoured in climate and production, seem to have been 
peopled in the days before history by dwarfish cave-dweUers 
of unknown origin. These were displaced by immigrants, 
supposed to have been akin to the peasants of Russia of the 
Mujik type. If so, they were of Tartar race, hailing from 
Northern Asia, and this is the more probable because similar 
customs are found among both Tartars and Japanese. 

For instance, it was the custom of both races partly to 
bury servants and horses alive round the grave cairns of a 
dead prince, in order to form a " living fence " to keep off evil 
spirits. The record of a Japanese Emperor who died in the 

year a.d. 70 says, " All those who had been in his personal 

106" 



EASTERN WORLD IN MIDDLE AGES 107 

service were gathered together and buried aUve in an upright 
position round his barrow. They did not die for many days, 
but wept and bewailed day and night. At length they died, 
and dogs and crows devoured them." 

Japan possessed no records of national history till the 
eighth century after Christ, and no system of writing before the 
sixth century, when we find a long chronicle of traditions deal- 
ing with the Age of Gods and Heroes, from whom the Mikados, 
or Emperors, were descended. From these, though we get no 
political history, we glean some hints as to the progress of 
civilization among the Japanese, a progress which seems to 
have been singularly slow, measured by the more rapid 
development of the West. Yet there is a very early mention 
of silk- weaving, of clothes " fastened crossways by knots " 
as at the present day, of plates of bamboo and wood. Differ- 
ence of rank was marked by certain tattoo marks on the skin. 
Theft was unknown, and other crimes were punished by the 
destruction of the whole family of the criminal. When a 
public man died, one of his clan was appointed as public 
mourner. This person might not comb his hair, wash, or eat. 
If the survivors prospered, he was rewarded with gifts ; if not, 
he was put to death. 

At the end of the second century A.D., after a long period of 
civil war, we hear of a mysterious queen. " She was old and 
unmarried and had devoted herself to the art of magic, so that 
she was able to deceive the people. They agreed to recognize 
her as queen. She has one thousand male servants ; but few 
see her face save one man who brings her meat and maintains 
communication with her. She lives in a palace of airy rooms 
surrounded by a palisade and protected by a guard of soldiers." 

The position of the Mikado was still more remote, as 
became his supposed divine origin. He was the head of a care- 
fully graduated series of tribes, whose bond of union was the 
worship of their ancestors and of the sun, which they adored 
as a goddess. 

There seems to have been very little connexion with the 
outer world before the sixth century, though we hear of 
pirate raids on Korea and an occasional embassy to China; 



108 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

and this accounts partly for the very slow development of 
Japan. There was in time, however, a certain amount of 
trade, still with Korea, the nearest point of the mainland. 

The sixth century brought the religion of Buddha to 
Japan, and with it a wave of Chinese civilization. Monasteries 
were built, and Buddhist monks became a power in the land. 

The government of Japan was by this time (sixth century) 
entirely on feudal lines. All arable land belonged to the 
Emperor, and was sublet into small family holdings on a lease 
of six or twelve years. The rent was paid in the form of pro- 
duce and labour. In spite of this, the country throve apace, 
and by the ninth or tenth century seems to have been at the 
zenith of its wealth and luxury. The moral tone of its people 
was very low, for by that time the worst side of feudalism was 
apparent ; the Mikado was a myth, and all power was in the 
hands of untrustworthy officials and nobles. Centuries of 
misrule and civil warfare followed. Law and order became 
unknown, and the custom of hara-kari, when the conquered 
fell upon his own sword and put an end to a dishonoured 
career, became common. The Samurai, originally peasant 
serfs, gradually emancipated themselves from that condition 
and formed a professional military class, with much power in 
their hands, as was natural in a nation without a constitu- 
tion. 

The first European to get into touch with Japan was the 
Venetian traveller, Marco Polo, who made his way through 
Asia to the court of Kubla Khan at Pekin. There he heard 
much o " Cipango," as Japan seems to have been called in 
those days, though he does not seem to have visited the 
islands. The people, he says, were " white, civilized, and so 
rich in gold that the royal palace was roofed and paved with 
that metal." At the end of the thirteenth century the 
country seems to have made a far more rapid advance in 
strength than seemed possible in the past. For when Kubla 
Khan, the conquering chieftain of the Mongols, sent to demand 
recognition of his supremacy and the payment of tribute, he 
met with a scornful refusal. A favourite tradition tells of the 
Mongohan fleet of ten thousand warriors and four thousand 



EASTERN WORLD IN MIDDLE AGES 109 

ships sent out against the daring Uttle country, and of its 
destruction on the way thither by a typhoon. 

Two centuries later, however, the land was in a perilous 
condition. For, owing to the extermination of the peasants, 
the hordes of freebooters which overran the country, and a 
disastrous civil war, Japan was forced to seek the aid of China, 
who set up an official " King of Japan " in return for a heavy 
tribute. It is remarkable, however, that this is the only 
instance of the country's loss of independence, and it was a 
matter of brief duratioh. 

From the middle of the sixteenth century we find European 
traders visiting the country, and the barrier of centuries at 
last removed for a while. Yet it seems as though the ex- 
clusive self-concentration of Japan was not yet destroyed. 
Late in the sixteenth century the Christian faith had been 
preached there and Jesuit missionaries and Dominican Friars 
were busy at their work, when a rising of the peasants gave 
the jealous priests of Buddha their chance. The Christians 
were accused of being the cause of the revolt, and a great 
persecution began, in which thousands of priests and people 
lost their lives. In the year 1624 all strangers were expelled 
from the land ; and hence, after little more than a century, 
the connexion between Japan and the Western World came to 
an end, and was not reopened again till the middle of the 
nineteenth century. 

This brief glance at the early story of Japan may help 
to explain the importance of her present position. Slow in 
development, with strength repressed but by no means 
destroyed, she makes her entrance into the Modern World 
as a young fresh nation in the midst of old and sometimes 
decaying forces. Ready as she is to adopt all that is best 
in European and American civilization, she yet retains her 
characteristic spirit of exclusiveness. Her people are small 
in stature and her land comparatively small in population, 
but she is yet full of a vitality that made her the conqueror 
of the unwieldy forces of Russia. Her future career is one 
of the most interesting problems of the Modern World. 

The Revival of Persia (10th Century)— But we must now 



110 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

return to mediaeval days, and regard upon our frieze of history 
a group of Eastern people which, in its threatening advance, 
reminds us of the dark year of Attila the Hun. First, however, 
let us glance at Western Asia, where we find in the tenth 
century a brief revival of Empire among the Persians. It 
was a small affair in comparison with that ancient Empire 
of former days ; but it had two marked effects upon mediaeval 
affairs. By their military success under the warrior King 
Mahmoud, the Persians for a time took the place of the 
Arabs as head of the Mohammedan world. And, in the realm 
of literature, this same Mahmoud showed his superiority over 
most of his contemporaries by the place he allotted to litera- 
ture in his scheme of national life. It is said that it was 
the recital of the hero poems, the sagas of Ancient Persia, 
that first stirred him to command that they should be collected 
and reduced to definite form. This was the work of Firdusi, 
one of the great world poets of all ages, who, when over 
seventy years of age, produced the Shah Nameh, or Book of 
Kings, the Mneid of the Persian people. For this master- 
piece Firdusi, for some reason, received only a part of the 
promised reward, and, haughtily refusing what was offered, 
the poet fled into exile and passed his days in writing angry 
satires upon his royal master. Like Dante, exactly three 
centuries later, he died an outcast from his native place, and 
did not even know that the repentant Sultan had sent him at 
the last a caravan of costly gifts. Like that of Dante's great 
poem, too, was the influence of the Shah Nameh upon his 
country. " These are the heroes whose glory I have restored, " 
he cries. " They all passed long ago, but my song has awakened 
them, to eternal life." Not only did the poems revive a lost 
national ideal, but they did much to unify a land of scattered 
tribes and various dialects by setting up a standard of language, 
very much as Chaucer's writings did for a fourteenth-century 
England. 

The Seljukian Turks (11th Century) — Yet the mediaeval 
Empire of Persia was at the time of the death of Mahmoud 
almost at its end, and about to be swept away by the Turkish 
tribes, now advancing in a great wave upon the world of 



EASTERN WORLD IN MIDDLE AGES 111 

Islam as it existed in the eleventh century. With hordes 
of savage Mongols hard upon their heels, these Seljukian 
Turks, originally nomadic tribes from the steppes of Turkestan, 
had pushed to the West and, coming there into conflict with 
the Arabs, had gradually conformed to the faith of Islam. 
From that time they became the conquering race, swamping 
the Mohammedan world and sweeping away in their relent- 
less advance the newly revived Persia as well as all the smaller 
nations of Western Asia. By the latter part of the eleventh 
century they had overrun almost the whole of Asia Minor 
and were threatening the gates of the Bosphorus. 

The influence of this savage race upon Western Asia was 
not altogether disastrous. The Turks had this advantage over 
the Arabs, that they possessed an instinct for order which 
the latter almost entirely lacked. They found the Moham- 
medan Empire torn with internal strife, and even imperial 
Bagdad weakened by disunion. Under the iron rule of the 
Seljukian Turks commerce rapidly improved, and even art, 
literature, and science revived, though the latter were foreign 
enough to the nature of the conquering race. When they 
settled in Asia Minor, the power of the Roman Empire of the 
East had passed for ever. Her feudal rule over the inhabitants 
of that region, with its powerful nobles and great military 
garrisons, had resulted in a condition of utter wretchedness. 
The free population had become serfs ; many thousands 
of the people had been either killed or deported in the wars 
between Persia and Constantinople and their place taken by 
slaves. It is due to the Seljukian Turk to say that, by 
dividing up the great estates among the survivors, he created 
a loyal and prosperous peasant class. But, by so doing, he 
added another strong contingent to the orces of Islam. 

The most important effect by far, however, that the 
Seljukian Turks have had upon world history is the part 
they played in causing Europe to take part in that great 
drama of mediaeval times known as the Crusades. 

The Crusades — ^The story of the Crusades must be read 
elsewhere in detail. We can but glance here at the main 
events before going on to note the importance of the move- 



112 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

ment as a whole. Let us first try to realize what it involved. 
It was the coming to grips of the two great religious forces 
of the world — Christianity and Islam, the Cross and the 
Crescent ; it was the first meeting face to face of the stately 
mysterious East with the Western World, in which the civiliza- 
tion and organization of Rome were beginning at last to 
prevail over the chaos attending the birth of the New 
Nations. 

We have seen how the Turks had threatened the seat of 
the Eastern Empire of Rome in their invasion of Asia Minor. 
From his stronghold in Constantinople the weak Emperor, 
quailing at their approach, had sent forth appeal after appeal 
to the nations of the West to come to his aid. But in those 
days it was no call from the tottering Empire of the East 
that could rouse a Europe torn with feudal strife and barely 
emerging into civilization. 

What was needed was not a material trumpet call to arms, 
but a spiritual appeal, an inspiration, an ideal ; and that 
was to come, as once before, from the " holy fields " of 
Palestine. 

In the year 1076 the Seljukian Turks conquered Jerusalem 
and overran the whole of Palestine save Antioch. The Holy 
City was at that time, as for many years past, the resort of 
Christian pilgrims of all ranks. Many of them were permanent 
settlers there, ruled by the Patriarch of Jerusalem ; others 
were peaceful traders. But the majority had come, as was 
the case with Robert, Duke of Normandy, father of William 
the Conqueror, and Eldred, the Bishop of York, and many 
another, " kings and counts, marquises and bishops, together 
with men of middle rank and many of the poorer sort," to 
pay their homage to the tomb of the Saviour. And, with 
very few exceptions, the Moslem Caliphs up to this time had 
left those pilgrims in peace and security. 

But to the Seljukian Turk, in his fanaticism, the very 
name of Christian was abhorrent. A veritable reign of 
terror began. The Patriarch was dragged by the hair through 
the streets and flung into a filthy prison. The holiest rites 
of the Church were profaned ; pilgrims were stripped and 



EASTERN WORLD IN MIDDLE AGES 113 

beaten on the hill roads leading to Jerusalem ; many suffered 
martyrdom at the Holy Tomb. 

From the East went up a great and terrible cry for aid for 
the oppressed and vengeance on the oppressor ; and at first 
it seemed as though Europe was turning a deaf ear to that 
piteous appeal. 

For the Western World was torn by a violent struggle 
between Kings and Popes over their rights as feudal lords. 
At one time the chief antagonists were the Emperor Henry IV 
and Pope Gregory VII ; at another, Henry I, head of the 
Norman Empire that comprised England and Northern 
France, and Anselm of Canterbury ; and these were but typical 
figures in a contest the nature of which has been already 
described. 

Chivalry— In the absorption of this struggle between 
Church and State, it seemed as though that call from the East 
would be unheard, did not some new and powerful force 
come forward to urge its importance. Already there had 
stirred in Europe that curious movement, or rather inspira- 
tion, known as Chivalry, which was to transform hordes of 
uncivilized, half-savage soldiers into knightly gentlemen, 
pledged to the threefold watchword of Religion, Honour, 
Courtesy, pledged also to the aid of the weak and the 
oppressed. 

The effect of this call for help upon the growing spirit of 
Chivalry was to set afoot a great Crusade. In itself Chivalry 
was the '* religion of Feudalism " — a vast institution, with 
rules and regulations which took years to develop. In a 
practical sense it was called into active being by the Crusade, 
though in theory it had already begun to stir the hearts of 
Christendom. Nothing since the days of Charlemagne, 
except the influence of the Papacy, had done so much to unify 
a broken, chaotic Europe as this ideal of Chivalry, crystallized 
into practical action by the call to a universal Crusade against 
the forces of the unbeliever. It was said, with some exag- 
geration, that " all wars and brigandage came to an end. 
The Crusade, like the rain, stilled the wind." 

Before the end of the eleventh century Jerusalem had 
8 



114 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

been stormed, and a Christian kingdom set up in the midst 
of the sects of Islam. Early in the twelfth century two great 
military orders, the Knights Hospitallers, whose special work 
was to tend the sick and' wounded, and the Knights Templars, 
whose duty originally was to defend the Holy Sepulchre and 
the brigand-infested passes by which pilgrims made their way 
thither, were playing a prominent part both in East and West. 

By the middle of the twelfth century a new power had 
arisen in the Eastern World. The Vizier Saladin had, by a 
stroke of military genius, made himself supreme over Egypt, 
and as the Champion of Islam determined to drive the forces 
of Christendom from Syria. 

It was impossible for the little kingdom of Jerusalem to 
hold her own in the midst of the vast encircling power of the 
Sultan, and in 1187 the Holy City was in his hands. Richard I 
of England and Philip of France succeeded with difficulty in 
occupying the coast of Tyre ; but Palestine was lost. This 
Saladin was, however, a worthy foe. Brave, generous, and 
strong-minded, the best type of Seljukian Turk, he earned 
the respect of his foes in Europe even while he established a 
new and powerful Mohammedan Empire in Asia Minor, a 
standing menace to the Empire of the East. 

The attempt to recover Palestine for Christendom dragged 
on for two more centuries, and only ended in 1291 with 
the failure of Otho de Grandison, representing the English 
prince Edward, son of Henry III, to hold the walls of Acre. 
He failed, as all his predecessors in the Holy Land had failed, 
because of the hopeless disunion among his supporters. 
When Knights Hospitallers turned their swords more readily 
against Knights Templars than against the foe ; when the 
ally of Otho, Henry, King of Cyprus, was capable of slipping off 
in the darkness and leaving him to his fate, who should blame 
the last of the long line of Englishmen who risked their lives 
in a lost cause when Acre fell ? 

And to-day Englishmen are proud to boast that it was 
another of their race who once again, more than six centuries 
after it had passed entirely out of Christian hands, wrested 
Jerusalem from the Turks and restored it to Christendom. 



EASTERN WORLD IN MIDDLE AGES 115 

Effect of the Crusades— Yet the Crusades, in spite of 
their apparent failure, had left an indelible mark on the 
history of the world. They accomplished the immense task 
of barring the way of the Turk in Europe, and deferring his 
entrance thither for a considerable period of time. 

We may, indeed, get some faint idea of what his rule would 
have done for Europe if we consider the present condition of 
the subjects of the Sultan in the Balkan Peninsula and compare 
it with the rest of Europe. A wave of Mohammedanism would 
have swept the Christian faith into far corners of the Continent, 
there to exist only under conditions of persecution ; and a 
religion whose chief tenet was the might of the sword would 
have been forced upon the Western World. 

In other respects the influence of the Crusades was for good. 
The movement, to begin with, struck a heavy blow at the 
Feudal System, a system which left an immense amount of 
power in the hands of the few, and was a perfect illustration 
of the motto, " Might is right." But when the feudal noble 
marched to the Holy Land, he either sold his lands or gave 
them in charge of Church or King,- to whom they reverted if 
he and his heirs failed to return. Thus both the Church and 
the royal authority were strengthened in these years, a fact 
that told heavily at a time when these two powers were often 
at variance. 

Another effect was the strengthening of the mediseval 
towns, then struggling into a difficult existence. The feudal 
noble had always been the chief hindrance in their path to 
freedom, since it was to his advantage to claim their inhabitants 
as his own peculiar vassals and to make their rights his own. 
But the Crusading nobles, in their need for ready money, were 
often glad to sell charters of freedom to the towns ; while 
their absence in distant lands removed all fear of unjust 
interference with their development. This fact did much to 
account for the growth of city life, of which we shall read in 
the following chapter. 

Moreover, when the feudal lord went forth to fight the 
Saracen, he ceased to be in a state of perpetual warfare with 
his neighbour ; and thus the constant petty fighting which had 



116 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

kept the Europe of the eleventh and twelfth centuries in a 
state of fidgety unrest began to die down. 

Even more striking is the effect of the constant journeying 
to and fro, the demand for ships for transport, the opening up 
of the Mediterranean trade and of the great commercial roads 
of the East to the merchants of the West. From Cairo and 
Damascus, from Bagdad and Alexandria, the silks and jewels, 
the spices and ivory, the perfumes and leather work of the 
East poured through the gates of Italy into Europe. To 
Venice, " the southern terminus of the great land trade route," 
was carried the produce of England, Norway, Flanders, 
France, and Germany as to a huge market ; and thence 
distributed throughout the East. And not only commerce 
was affected by these open roads. 

It must not be forgotten that the nations of the West 
had not long emerged from a condition of barbarism, and 
were still only very partially civilized. We have only to 
compare the rude hut of the mediaeval peasant or the primi- 
tive castle of the noble with the fine houses and marble palaces 
of the Eastern World to realize how very far ahead was the East 
in the arts of civilization. When the prince or the baron of 
the West was stiU a rough boor, mannerless and ill-educated, 
the Saracen of the East was a learned and cultured gentleman, 
skilled in medicine and music and in many a science, with all 
the lore of the ancient world behind him. And since, though 
they were foes in name, there was always a certain amount 
of friendly intercourse between the Crusader and the Saracen, 
the former was bound to be affected to some degree. From 
the East he learnt the Arabic system of notation, to be used 
later instead of the clumsy Roman figures. There is, in fact, 
scarcely any branch of scientific knowledge, from architecture 
to astronomy, that cannot be traced to the keen and subtle 
intelligence of the East. 

All this is, however, of trifling concern compared with the 
great unifying effect upon a Europe whose one great danger, 
in early mediaeval days, was her lack of centralization, in 
an age when her various kingdoms were raw and inexperienced 
in the national idea In religious matters men's eyes turned 



EASTERN WORLD IN MIDDLE AGES 117 

instinctively to the Head of Christendom in Rome. In 
temporal affairs they looked in vain for a Charlemagne or 
even a WiUiam of Normandy, in days when the Empire of the 
Angevins, the States of Italy, the kingdom of France, the 
lands of the German Emperor, were constantly shifting their 
boundaries and changing their rulers. It was the long 
struggle with Pope Gregory VII that kept the Emperor 
Henry IV from joining in the Crusades and turned against 
him the sympathy of Europe. It was the death of Frederick 
Barbarossa " leading the van of Christian chivalry against the 
Mussulman " that sets him apart as the noblest of mediseval 
knights. For it was during the first three Crusades that, 
for the first time, the ideal was set up of a great Christian 
commonwealth in Europe, with one grand unselfish goal 
before her eyes, for which all her sons and daughters were 
called upon to make the same supreme sacrifice of wealth and 
material welfare and hfe. And though in the end this ideal 
was doomed to fade, it could not be said to have failed in its 
effect upon the world. If Europe did not become united, 
she did become cosmopolitan, as far as her faith, her learning, 
her literature, her art, her commerce were concerned. And 
on the spiritual side, it was this sense of universal brotherhood 
that brought into being those two great orders of " ecclesi- 
astical knighthood," the Dominicans and Franciscans, whose 
influence upon the mediaeval world was so immense. The 
Dominican, the "Hound of the Lord," swift on the scent of 
error and ignorance, the Franciscan, setting up the ideal of 
" My Lady Poverty " before a materialistic and money- 
loving Europe, became the chief, if not the only, social workers 
of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the science lecturers 
at the Universities of Europe, the doctors, the missionaries, 
the philosophers of those days. From the Dominicans came 
St. Thomas Aquinas, the most profound of mediaeval philo- 
sophers; from the Franciscans, Roger Bacon, teacher of 
science at Oxford. 

This brief account of one of the most remarkable move- 
ments of world history will help us to judge of the truth of the 
statement that there existed no civilization in Europe before 



118 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

the Crusades. Such a dictum takes no account of the legacies 
of the ancient Empires of Greece and Rome, often forgotten, 
but never entirely lost, nor of the fact that the Roman Empire, 
now long dead, was yet strong enough to impose her language, 
her law, her constitution on almost the whole of the alien 
races which had supplanted her. 

It ignores also the fact of the existence of flourishing 
universities at Bologna, at Paris, at Oxford, before the end 
of the twelfth century, institutions which might have been 
stimulated by the Crusades, but could scarcely have had 
their origin in them. But it is true to say that the spirit of 
the Holy War, apart from the influence of Eastern culture, 
did an immense amount to stir up a great intellectual revival 
in Europe during this period, and that, in a universal brother- 
hood of letters, Europe became, in the highest sense, at one. 



EXERCISES 

1. Examine the statement, " There was no civilization in 
Europe before the Crusades." 

2. Trace the growth of Chivalry and explain its effect on 
mediaeval Europe. 

3. Show by some examples the cosmopolitanism of mediaeval 
Europe. 

4. Sketch the story of Japan. 



CHAPTER X 

THE LATER MEDIAEVAL WORLD OF EUROPE 
(a.d. 1200-1500) 

WHEN we study the main features of development, 
in both East and West, since the Early Middle 
Ages, we find Europe beginning to be separated 
into four great sections. There is the East, still 
under the nominal rule of the Emperor, very slow to move in 
the way of progress, and still absorbed in the necessity of 
guarding Europe from the hordes of Asia. There is the 
North, barely civilized as yet. There is Central Europe, 
roughly mapped out as " Germany," which, together with 
Italy, was divided up into a number of small states or 
principalities, over which, during this period, the parties of 
the Pope and the Emperor, calling themselves respectively 
Guelphs and Ghibellines, were always at war. And there 
is Western Europe, in which, owing to various causes, 
the idea of the monarchy as a form of government was first 
to develop. 

The Growth of the " Kingdom "—But although the vast 
*' shadow-empire " of Charlemagne had fallen to pieces, 
there was very little idea of " nationalism " in the sense of a 
kingdom developing on its own lines apart from the rest ; and 
the note of " cosmopolitan " ideals in religion, education, 
law, literature, and art still sounded very distinctly long after 
the boundaries of various ** kingdoms " had been roughly 
marked out. 

The germ of the " kingdom " was the feudal " county " 
or state ruled by a despot in the shape of count or baron 
by means of his vassal army. Often enough the " king " 

developed naturally out of the " glorified baron," as in the 

119 



120 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

case of Duke William of Normandy, the future ruler of 
England. When a baron had raised himself over the heads 
of his peers by force of personality or weight of arms, his 
state became " royal," and could be handed on to his 
descendants. He could, moreover, by securing the allegiance 
of the smaller feudal barons, make himself strong enough to 
break up loosely held tracts of territory and to add large 
portions to his own realm. 

The Making of France — Thus we find Philip Augustus 
in the early thirteenth century enlarging his tiny kingdom 
of France, with its little stretch of territory round Paris 
and Orleans, by breaking up the great Angevin Empire, 
which stretched, since the days of the English Henry H, 
from the Tweed to the Pyrenees, and by taking from John of 
England all his French possessions north of the River Loire. 

This event not only added immensely to the size and 
strength of the kingdom of France. It also helped in a 
marked way to awaken the national spirit in England earlier 
than on the Continent, a spirit due partly, it is true, to her 
position as an island, but also largely to the fact that, after 
the separation from the continental Empire of which she 
had formed but an insignificant part, she was naturally far 
more inclined to develop upon her own lines. 

Meantime the tiny kingdom of Paris, ringed round by 
great feudal territories, had grown under Louis IX, the 
St. Louis of the thirteenth century, into one of the strongest 
and most solid of European kingdoms. For Louis was no 
less a practical ruler because he was a saint, and by his firm 
administration he did much to establish the absolute monarchy 
in France that was to end only with the Revolution. His 
reign saw the beginning of a " Parliament " ; and the growth 
of a " King's Bench," instead of the rough-and-ready procedure 
of the feudal courts, made Roman law familiar in the land. 
But the chief blow at the feudalism which was the chief 
check upon absolute monarchy was struck when his grandson, 
Philip IV, raised money to support a standing army by direct 
taxation, and also substituted money payments for military 
service. 



THE LATER MEDIEVAL WORLD 121 

Presently we see France emerging from the Hundred 
Years War of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries strong 
enough in her victory over her English foe to establish an 
absolute government to which both nobles and commons 
had to bow. State officials took the place held by the barons 
in the England of that day, and the supremacy of the king 
over all departments of the State was unchallenged. 

The growth of the kingdom of France had been affected 
very largely by the mixed character of her population, which 
had joined the enterprise and vivacity of the Celtic Gaul 
to the stern tenacity of the Roman, and mingled with both 
the strength and vigour of the Teutonic race as found in the 
Gothic and Scandinavian invaders. 

Growth of Spain — In Spain, her sister kingdom, we find 
the same mixture of races. The original Iberians mingled 
with the first Celtic settlers, and were both permeated with 
the spirit of Rome. Then came the Teutonic element in 
the shape of the Visigoths, who founded, it will be remem- 
bered, a kingdom there in the fifth century; and these 
were driven out of the greater part of the country by the 
Moors or Saracens. By the close of the thirteenth century 
the Moors had been forced southward into the little kingdom 
of Granada ; and it was the long struggle with the followers 
of Islam that created a national spirit in Spain and served 
to build up a Christian kingdom in the land. The exploits 
of Ruy Diaz, the national hero, known lovingly as the Cid, 
or Lord, are inextricably woven with this struggle of the 
Cross against the Crescent, though it is doubtful whether 
Ruy was anything better than an adventurer, fighting for 
his own hand. But long after his death his name served to 
stir up the spirit of patriotism in Spain and to prepare her 
for the unification that was to come about in the fifteenth 
century. The marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon with 
Isabella of Castile in 1479 then combined the two most 
important States into one kingdom, and their united strength 
drove out the last remnant of Islam from Granada in 1492 
after it had ruled there for close upon eight centuries. 

From that time there were few difficulties in the way 



122 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

of establishing an absolute monarchy in Spain. In France, 
as we have seen, this form of government was the only 
alternative in those days to a condition of feudalism, and 
as such it had an important task to perform. And when, 
by a royal alliance with the House of Austria, Spain joined 
hands with Eastern Europe, she was able within a very few 
years to stand forth as the leading nation of what was to be 
the Modern World. 

To understand the method of growth and unification of 
the rest of Europe we must take a sweeping glance at the 
condition of the Teutonic Empire from the middle of the 
tenth century to the middle of the fifteenth. 

The Holy Roman Empire — When Otto the Great was 
crowned Emperor in a.d. 962, national distinctions scarcely 
existed within the domain which was to be the future Holy 
Roman Empire. The bond which linked all the various 
parts together was purely internal, a spiritual rather than a 
material tie, " resting not on armed hosts or wide lands, 
but upon the duty, the awe, and love of its subjects." In 
Germany itself, with its six great tribes always warring 
against one another, there seemed small sign of unity ; and 
yet at the Coronation feast of Otto, attended by Franks 
and Bavarians, Saxons and Suabians, Thuringians and 
Lorrainers, the underlying link of a common speech and a 
common pride in their Emperor was there as a symbol of 
the actual fact. 

By the end of the reign of Otto, Jutland and Denmark 
were his vassal states, and the Slav tribes of the Eastern 
borders had submitted to him and were ready to fortify 
Austria, the " Eastern State," against the invasion of Turks 
or other Asiatics. Even the nomad people of Hungary 
were induced by him to settle upon the fertile lands washed 
by the Danube. Less wide than the Empire of Charles the 
Great, less Roman and more Teutonic in atmosphere, the 
Empire of Otto knew a peace and prosperity not experienced 
hitherto in Europe. To Germany the eyes of the nations 
now were turned as the heir of the temporal authority once 
held by Rome, and to her people as the " imperial race." 



THE LATER MEDIEVAL WORLD 123 

On the other hand, the German tribes, newly civilized as 
they were, had eagerly imbibed the knowledge and culture 
of Italy, and were ready in their turn to hand on the torch 
to such outlying regions as Poland or Bohemia. " If the 
revived Romano-Germanic Empire was less splendid than 
the Western Empire had been under Charles, it was, within 
narrower limits, firmer and more lasting, since based on a 
social force which the other had wanted. It perpetuated 
the name, the language, the literature, such as it then was, 
of Rome ; it extended her spiritual sway ; it strove to re- 
present that concentration for which men cried, and became 
a power to unite and civilize Europe."^ 

Meantime, while Otto, as " Lord of the World " north 
and south of the Alps, was attempting to weld a number 
of different tribes into a single people, the rest of Europe, 
torn by the miseries of feudal rule, was rapidly developing 
a spirit of isolation and diversity. It was this spirit of 
feudal despotism, aiming as it did at the overthrow of 
spiritual as well as temporal rule, which lay at the root of 
the long struggle between Pope and Emperor that marks 
the next period of Empire. 

From the middle of the eleventh century till the end 
of the thirteenth, the struggle lasted under various aspects. 
Whether it turned on the right of " investiture," on the 
right of election to the imperial throne without consent of 
the Pope, or the right of freedom for the cities of Italy, 
matters little. The real issue was as to whether the Pope 
or the Emperor was to be supreme over the Holy Roman 
Empire. 

Guelph and GhibeUine — The long struggle had its 
dramatic crises. At one of these, in the year 1077, we see 
Henry IV, the deposed ruler of Germany, shivering on the 
snow-bound slopes below the castle of Canossa, within whose 
walls is Pope Gregory VII, the one man on earth whose 
word could win him back his Empire. 

The word of absolution was spoken, but the contrition 
of the penitent was but skin-deep. Rome was besieged, 
1 Bryce's Holy Roman Empire. 



124 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

the Pope had to flee for his life, and eight years later died 
in exile. 

A century later, the humiliation of the " going to 
Canossa " was re-enacted when Frederick Barbarossa, 
haughtiest of Emperors, knelt before Pope Alexander III 
in the great Cathedral of St. Mark at Venice, and humbly 
kissed his feet. The Emperor, powerful though he was, 
had been worsted in his attempt to seize the Italian cities 
over which the Pope held rule ; and his abandonment of 
them to the Church from that time was marked by his 
action on that day. 

At about the same time a struggle of similar character 
was being waged in England between Henry H and 
Thomas of Canterbury, and again the Church won the day, 
though at the cost of the life of the Archbishop. But 
in Germany the conflict left a deeper bitterness in its wake, 
and sowed the seed of that great upheaval and revolt in 
the sixteenth century which was to have its outcome in the 
schism between Germany and Rome, sometimes known as 
the German Reformation. 

Again, we find Frederick II, grandson of the founder of 
the Hohenstaufen dynasty, engaged in the same struggle. 
But now the bone of contention is Sicily, or rather the kingdom 
of Sicily and Naples, known as the " two Sicilies." Founded 
by Norman adventurers just before the days in which their 
cousins conquered England, this dynasty had been, until the 
year 1189, not only independent of the Empire, but the latter 's 
most dangerous enemy. It fell into the hands of Henry VI, 
the successor of Barbarossa by a marriage with Constance, the 
last of the line of Norman princes ; and since the way to this 
important State was barred to him at the Pope's will by the 
possession of Central Italy, it was the aim of Frederick to 
unite Naples and Sicily under his rule. 

But the Popes claimed that the " two Sicilies " had been 
held by the Normans as fiefs of the Holy See ; for it was of 
extreme importance to them that the Papal States should not 
be at the mercy of the two possibly hostile States of North 
and South Italy, between which they lay. Out of this arose a 



THE LATER MEDIAEVAL WORLD 125 

tremendous conflict between the Papacy and one of the most 
striking figures of Mediaeval Europe. For Frederick II was to 
be " the last Emperor to brave the terrors of the Church and 
to die beneath her ban ; the last who ruled from the sands of 
the ocean to the Sicilian Sea." 

The House of Hapsburg — With the death of his son in 
1254 the Hohenstaufen dynasty, and with it the Empire of 
Germany, fell. For the preoccupation of the Emperors with 
affairs in Italy had prevented them from holding in check the 
German princes, and, in the hands of petty nobles, the land 
was flooded with anarchy and disorder. For nineteen years 
after the last of the Hohenstaufens died, Germany had no ruler. 
It was only after the threat of the Pope that if the petty princes 
did not choose their ruler he would himself appoint one, that 
they elected Rudolf, Count of Hapsburg, founder of the House 
of Austria, as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. And this 
title was held by the rulers of Austria until the year 1806, when 
Francis II, heir to the " oldest political institution in the 
world," announced his resignation of the imperial crown. 

Yet Rudolf and his successors ruled as local rather than 
universal monarchs. In the other States of Europe during this 
period we have seen the growing power of the king and the 
centralization in him of the government. But in Germany 
it was exactly the opposite. The idea of union, of central- 
ization, had weakened, and the whole country now broke up 
into a number of small feudal States ruled by their own local 
princes. Not till the year 1871 were they to be united into 
a new German Empire, brought to a sudden end as a result 
of the Great War of 1914-1918. 

So the second of the great Teutonic Empires, being no 
longer a necessary part of the world's order, passed away in 
all but name. 

During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries we find large 
slices of that Empire broken completely away. Burgundy, so 
useful as a barrier to France, passed over to the latter State ; 
Switzerland revolted against the Austrian oppression and 
became independent ; and after the fifteenth century almost 
the last trace of Teutonic rule in Italy had passed away. 



126 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

Poland, once a tributary state, had become independent, and 
was even strong enough to snatch Prussia from those bands 
of " Teutonic Knights " who had enriched that district with 
wealthy merchant cities. The Hungarians had thrown off the 
German yoke, and Bohemia, too, was practically independent. 
Not till the year 1493, when Maximilian of Hapsburg united 
in his person, and through his marriage, many of these 
scattered territories, did a faint reflection of the former glory of 
the Empire rise ; and even then it was the glory of the Austrian 
monarchy rather than that of the hollow title of ruler of the 
Holy Roman Empire. 

The Awakening of Mediseval Europe — ^During the thirteenth 
century the University of Paris became the most famous seat 
of learning in Europe. Over five thousand students thronged 
its lecture rooms, where many men afterwards famous, such as 
St. Thomas Aquinas, were among the youths crowded round 
the " chair " of Albertus Magnus and other great teachers, who 
lectured to the students scattered over the rush-strewn floors. 
Many of these students were penniless boys, dependent upon the 
alms of the generous lovers of learning. There were no resi- 
dential colleges, but a number of hostels in which the students 
lived in the roughest possible way, content with the plainest 
and scantiest fare as long as they were free to study the seven 
liberal arts — grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, 
astronomy, and music — and later on the more advanced 
courses in theology, law, or medicine. No doubt the influence 
of the Crusaders, with their revelation of the learning of the 
East, did much to stimulate this mediseval desire for learning ; 
but this enthusiasm for study was due also to the new social 
conditions then coming into being. The intellectual awaken- 
ing of Europe as a whole, the outburst of romantic literature, 
especially in France, the revival to some extent of the ancient 
classic literature that had been forgotten, save in Byzantium, 
for more than eight centuries, led to an outburst of speculative 
thought and philosophy of which the University of Paris was 
the centre and Thomas of Aquin, with his revival of the 
study of Aristotle, the chief exponent. 

Again, we must realize that a new social feeling was grow- 



THE LATER MEDIEVAL WORLD 127 

ing up in a Europe that had, from the eleventh century onward, 
been finding its feet after centuries of anarchy and disorder. 
The man of letters, instead of being regarded as an inexpli 
cable personality, was everywhere in demand ; and for this 
reason, among others, men turned to the universities as a 
training-ground for professional life, for preparation for public 
service of all kinds as well as for the priesthood. 

Thus the seed sown by Charlemagne and Alcuin in their 
School of Tours was reaped in a rich harvest some four cen- 
turies later. 

The Origin of Towns— Not only in the universities but 
in the growth of towns do we see the awakening of Mediaeval 
Europe, and that most clearly, perhaps, in France, though the 
movement was hurrying on apace under somewhat different 
conditions in the England of those days. 

The growth of towns had been slow in France owing to the 
feudal disruptions and unrest, which prevented any kind of 
commerce, trade, or industry, and limited the population 
strictly to agricultural work. With the making of roads and 
waterways the wandering merchant and pedlar made their 
appearance. By degrees these settled down on the outskirts 
of a settlem^ent, such as that of Verdun, where the citoyens, 
bound strictly by their mediaeval Gild rules, excluded strictly 
those bourgeois, who were self-contained trading companies on 
much freer lines. Thus trade was encouraged and a certain 
amount of competition set on foot. The high watch-tower or 
belfry seen in so many of the mediaeval towns of modern 
France and Belgium was in most cases the sign of freedom 
for these settlements, or "bourgs," whose members " enjoyed 
the peace of the town and market " and gradually obtained a 
state of equality with the citizens within the city wall. 

The legal and economic rights of these communes were, 
however, hardly won. At first they were under the ban of 
the Church, which looked with suspicion on their demands 
for freedom from ecclesiastical rule ; later on they suffered 
from the effects of their own exclusiveness. For when they, 
in their turn, refused admission to new settlers, they lost 
the obvious advantage of fresh ideas in commerce and new 



128 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

methods of trade. Most of all they suffered from the effects 
of the long Hundred Years War, during the fourteenth and 
fifteenth centuries, which forced them to give up their rights 
to king or bishop in order to gain protection for hfe and 
property. 

In spite of these conditions, however, the whole of Europe, 
from the eleventh century onwards, was to witness a great 
revival in the growth of the city hfe that had been destroyed 
by barbarian invasion and feudal conditions. 

The increase of trade and commerce, the rise of the market 
and fair, the practice of paying in money in place of goods 
or service, aU tended to the rise of cities ; and, as civiUzation 
increased, the city system became the open rival of feudalism 
and the means whereby the provinces, the backbone of 
Europe, won back their freedom. 

Sometimes, as in England, France, and Spain, the cities 
gained a charter of liberties from the king, but were still com- 
pletely under his government. In Germany, owing to her 
condition of anarchy, many cities became entirely independ- 
ent, developing into repubUcs like Athens or Corinth in the 
days of Greece, with complete freedom from anything hke 
slavery or serfdom, and inhabited by a new class of " bur- 
gesses," or independent tradesmen. 

This class appeared at about the same period (the eleventh 
century) in most parts of Europe. It was among its 
members that there grew up the Gild System. The Gild of 
the Merchants regulated the trade of the town and prevented 
strangers from buying or selling there, except by permission 
of the community and under its conditions. It protected also 
the interests of members, examined the quaUty of their work, 
tested weights and measures, and lent money to the town. 
Sometimes the gildsmen built churches, repaired roads and 
bridges, or maintained a ** free " school. 

The Craft Gilds were bodies of workmen banded together 
for mutual protection according to their crafts. But, besides 
keeping up their own standard of work, regulating their em- 
ployment of apprentices, and " enforcing brotherly behaviour 
and charity," they did most useful work in caring for the 



THE LATER MEDIEVAL WORLD 129 

sick, relieving the wants of the needy, and maintaining the 
particular church to which their own Gild was attached. 
Their story is full of interest, but it cannot be told here, though 
the important part they played in mediseval life demands 
their mention. 

Italian Cities — In Northern Italy, as we have seen, the 
struggle for freedom against German rule had resulted, before 
the fourteenth century, in the division of the country into a 
number of independent states, ruled for the most part by a 
local prince or noble after the fashion of a despot. 

This was the case with Milan, with Genoa, with Florence. 
But while these three were all noted for their commercial 
importance, Florence had, by the fifteenth century, won a 
reputation for learning, art, and literature that made her the 
most renowned city of Europe. 

From all these cities Venice stood apart. Ruler of the 
Adriatic, the only important Italian town that did not date 
from Roman times, the trading centre and clearing station 
for the commerce of East and West, she was governed by a 
Doge elected by the popular vote, and by an oligarchy of her 
most capable citizens, who succeeded in making her in very 
truth the " Eye of Italy." By the end of the fifteenth cen- 
tury Venice ruled an empire that covered a large slice of 
Northern Italy and the whole of the eastern coast of the 
Adriatic. 

Cities of Flanders — Lastly, we must notice the wealthy 
cities of Flanders, then an independent district of mingled 
French and Teutonic origin. Her cities, lying as they did 
upon the mainland route to the South, and also forming con- 
venient halting-places for merchants traveUing by sea from 
the Mediterranean to the Baltic, had immense advantages of 
position apart from her vast trade in the wool manufacture 
of the whole world. At Bruges the merchants of Venice, with 
the commerce of Southern Europe and Western Asia in their 
hands, met the merchants of the Hanse towns of Northern 
Europe. At Ghent and Ypres and Antwerp and Louvain 
the riches amassed by the prosperous burghers went to build 
some of the most perfect architecture the world has known. 
9 



180 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

Only the bitter trade rivalry that existed between 
these strong and independent cities prevented Flanders, 
small as she was, from ranking with Northern Italy, with 
Prussia, or with England in importance. Weakened by 
disunion, she was annexed by France during the fourteenth 
century, and became part of the kingdom of Belgium in the 
first half of the nineteenth century. 



EXERCISES 

1. Trace the origin of the " kingdom " in Mediaeval Europe. 

2. What was the effect of Feudalism {a) on country, (h) on 
city life ? 

3. Sketch the growth of any one European kingdom. 

4. Explain the meaning of the title " Holy Roman Empire." 

5. Write a brief essay on {a) mediaeval universities or (b) the 
" free cities " of Europe. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE LATER MEDIEVAL WORLD OF ASIA 

(a.d. 1200-1500) 

THE Crusades, the greatest of mediaeval movements, 
had made vain attempts to force the ideals and 
civiHzation of the West upon the alien people of the 
East. And now, at the dawn of the thirteenth cen- 
tury, there was already growing up in Asia a new Empire, 
which was to form the most serious menace to civilization 
that the West had known since the days of the first Teutonic 
invasions. 

The Mongolian Empire o£ Genghis Khan— The Mongols, 
under which name are included aU the peoples known 
as the Yellow Races, were originally barbarian nomads, 
wandering on the steppes of Central Asia. Content in 
early days to war against each other on some pretext 
of stolen wives or cattle, they were, in the early years of the 
thirteenth century, united and organized by a master spirit 
known as Genghis Khan — the " Very Mighty King." He 
is said to have been a boy of twelve when he faced his own 
revolting tribes, and showed himself even then the perfect 
warrior whom they gladly hailed as their leader. His first 
organized attack was upon the Great Wall which had for so 
many centuries shut off China from Western Asia. Behind 
this wall the huge unwieldy Chinese Empire still lay drowsing 
as in the days of the Ancient World. But now it received 
a rude awakening when the discovery was made that the 
northern part of her vast Empire had been overrun by the 
new-comers. Scarcely was this complete when Genghis 
Khan turned his sword against Turkestan and Persia. His 

destructive aim was open and unashamed. All those fine 

131 



182 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

territories and well-built towns were to be destroyed, and 
only to those who promptly submitted would mercy be 
shown. Poets and scholars, heirs of the ancient civiHzation 
of Persia and the East, fled from the land, the intellectual 
life of Persia died away, and her rose-gardens became 
pasture-lands for the herds of the nomads who were her 
conquerors. 

With these there perished a pernicious sect of Turks 
known as the Ismailians, the " Scourges of Asia," who for 
many years, under a false pretence of being followers of Islam, 
had harassed the orthodox Mohammedans with fire and 
sword. This sect was now massacred by the Mongols in 
cold blood. It was, however, easier to draw than to sheathe 
the sword ; and before the onrush of the barbarians fine 
Eastern cities, such as Bokhara and Samarkand, famous 
trade centres and treasure houses of Eastern culture, were 
destroyed. Then the invaders swept farther West, crushing 
the Russian principalities in their stride, until in 1227, at 
the death of Genghis Khan, the Mongol Empire stretched 
from the River Dnieper to the Yellow Sea. 

Under the successors of the " Mighty King " that Empire 
was extended till it embraced Russia, Asia Minor, Poland, 
and Hungary on the West, and Tibet and Korea on the East. 
The grandson of its founder, Kubla Khan, made himself 
Emperor of China, and built for himself a famous palace in 
the city now known as Pekin. 

Reign of Tamerlaine (1369-1405) — The second part of the 
fourteenth century, nearly two centuries after the death of 
Genghis Khan, saw a revival of the Empire under Timur or 
Tamerlaine. During this period the vast Empire had broken 
up into many principalities ; but under this soldier of fortune, 
Timur the Lame, it was to some extent reunited. As " Lord 
of the World" he carried a sword of flame throughout 
Central Asia, marched across the river Ganges and conquered 
Northern India, then turned West to lay Asia Minor in ruins, 
to demand the overlordship of Egypt, to wipe out the 
remnants of the Seljukian Turks, and seriously to threaten 
Europe. 



THE LATER MEDIEVAL WORLD 133 

The ambition of Timur was unbounded, but his death in 
1405 prevented him from fulfilling his project of conquering 
China; so that all he actually did was to unite the three 
great western portions of the Mongolian Empire— Northern 
India, Central Asia, and Asia Minor. With him " the age 
of the great nomad Empires " definitely closed. 

What had been the effect of this Empire upon the progress 
of the world ? If we look for it upon our frieze of history 
we shall see it symboHzed best in that vast pyramid of 
seventy thousand skulls built to show the result of Timur's 
conquests in Western Asia. A savage joy in destruction 
was the characteristic of the Mongol, and, when the wave 
of his conquests had passed, civiHzation for the time seemed 
to have been washed away. 

There is another side to the picture. " The storm did 
not only wreak destruction ; it purified the atmosphere." 

Many of those ancient cities of Persia, so ruthlessly 
destroyed, had deteriorated into hotbeds of luxury and 
vice, and nothing but annihilation would have cleansed 
them. Moreover, where submission was offered, as in China, 
the Mongol would settle down and rapidly become stamped, 
at anyrate on the surface, with the civilization of the 
conquered race. By his vast and far-reaching conquests 
he opened up nearly every part of Asia, so that all races 
could communicate with each other. Thus uncivilized 
races could benefit by the experience of those who had never 
lost the civilization of the Ancient World. 

Even the gates of exclusive China were opened during 
this century and a half of Mongol rule, and for a while a 
not unimportant trade was carried on between China and 
Europe. At Karakorum, the Chinese capital of the Mongol 
Empire, there met together Chinese artisans, merchants 
from Persia and Arabia, Jesuit missionaries from Portugal 
and Italy, gold workers from France, Arabs and Buddhist 
priests. For the first time for centuries China was roused 
from her drowsy slumber and began to be interested 
in the astronomy and mathematics of Persia and the 
West. 



134 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

But, while the Mongol invasion thus scattered the remnants 
of ancient civihzation far and wide, it at the same time 
destroyed it at its source, reducing the once most highly 
cultured region in the world to a desert waste. 

So, when Timur, after his stormy life, had been laid to 
rest under the huge mosque of Samarkand, his vast Empire 
crumbled into dust. China reverted to her old position of 
hostile aloofness, and drove the foreigner from her land. 
Western Asia became the home of rival hordes which preyed 
on one another to their destruction. One of these, however, 
had managed, during the fourteenth century, to make itself 
famous as the Ottoman Turks, the followers of Othman, who 
was to found the Ottoman Empire. With their story 
is bound up that great event which marks off the Modem 
from the Mediaeval World — ^the Fall of Constantinople. 
Let us briefly see the happening of it. 

The FaU of the Empire o£ the East (1333-1453)— The 
Eastern Empire of Rome, threatened but not actually 
invaded by the dreaded Moguls, had by the year 1333 lost 
all her possessions in Asia Minor, except the town of 
Chalcedon and the strip of land that faced Constantinople 
across the Bosphorus. Those who now held the lost domains 
were these Ottoman Turks just mentioned, whose leader, 
Othman, had managed before his death to push the newly 
revived Turkish Empire as far west as the Sea of Marmora. 
Their rule over Asia Minor was firm and just enough, but 
one grim feature was the employment of young boys, levied 
each year as tribute from the Christians, to be trained as 
" Janissaries " or " New Soldiers " of the Turkish army, 
to fight against Christian lands. 

As the years went by, the Ottomans crept nearer and 
nearer to the heart of the Eastern Empire ; and then a sinister 
event occurred for their encouragement. About the middle 
of the fourteenth century there was civil strife in the capital, 
and one party actually called in the aid of the Turks and 
allowed them to overrun the Greek province of Thrace. A 
few years later Adrianople submitted to their Sultan, and 
nothing remained of the Empire of the East save Constan- 



THE LATER MEDIiEVAL WORLD 135 

tinople, the town of Thessalonica, and the Byzantine province 
of the Peloponnesus. 

For the next hundred and fifty years the Ottomans were 
hindered from the invasion of Europe only by the determined 
barriers set up by the Serbians and Bulgarians, and in 
later years by the distraction caused by the conquests of 
Timur the Mongol, then pressing hard upon their rear. At 
the very hour when Bajazet, the Turkish Sultan, was attacking 
Constantinople, Timur and his Tartar hordes fell upon him 
like a thunderbolt, took him prisoner, and demanded tribute 
after his death, in impartial wise, from his two sons and also 
from Manuel, the Emperor of Constantinople. 

Amurath — A later Sultan, Amurath by name, was to 
build up a stronger Empire for the Ottomans, untroubled 
by Mongol threats ; and in his day great prosperity came 
upon his land. " He was a just and valiant prince," says 
one of his own people, " of a great soul, patient of labours, 
learned, reHgious, merciful, charitable ; a lover and encourager 
of the studious and of all who excelled in any art or science ; 
a good Emperor and a great general. No man obtained more 
or greater victories than Amurath. Under his reign the 
soldier was ever victorious, the citizen rich and secure. If he 
subdued any country, his first care was to build mosques 
and caravanserais, hospitals and colleges." 

But while he was thus strengthening his Empire the 
doomed city of Constantinople was further weakened by 
internal strife. Hoping to get aid from Rome, the Emperor, 
John Palaeologus, consented to acknowledge the supremacy 
of the Pope. But the majority of his people utterly refused 
to accept the terms of this agreement, and John was left in 
terrified expectation, while a brave King of Poland and 
Hungary tried vainly to stem the tide of invasion. John was 
succeeded by his brother Constantine, bearer of the honoured 
name of the founder of the city, but destined to be its last 
Christian ruler. This poor-spirited prince was as content 
as his predecessors to be the vassal of Mohammed the Con- 
queror, son of the great Amurath ; but this fact by no means 
satisfied the ambition of the Sultan. On the excuse that 



136 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

some Greek soldiers had attacked the Turks, who, in order to 
build a fortress, were pulling down a beautiful old church 
outside the city, Mohammed declared war, and in the spring 
of 1453 the Siege of Constantinople was begun. 

In this siege Mohammed made use of that gunpowder 
whose use was to be one of the distinctive features of the new 
world ; and under the shock of his guns the old walls of the 
city shuddered and fell. For forty days Constantinople was 
held by a prince to whom despair had at last lent courage ; 
but on 29 May 1453 the end came. A special effort had been 
urged by the Sultan. " The city and buildings," he said to 
his soldiers, " are mine, but I resign to you the captives 
and the spoil, the treasures of gold and beauty; be rich 
and happy. Many are the provinces of my Empire ; the 
soldier who first ascends the walls of Constantinople shall 
be rewarded with the government of the fairest and most 
wealthy." 

The answer shook the crumbling walls : 

" Allah is great ! There is no god but Allah, and 
Mohammed is his Prophet." 

In that cry passed away for ever the glory of the Empire 
of the East. The shout re-echoed again when the Sultan, 
trampUng the body of the last Emperor underfoot, rode to the 
great Church of St. Sophia, and passed on his magnificent 
war-horse through the Eastern door and up to the very altar 
itself. 

The rule of the Crescent had displaced that of the Cross, 
and from that time the Turks have held sway in Eastern 
Europe, though to-day they have little left there but the 
capital. 

EXERCISES 

1. What was the legacy to the History of the World left by 
the great nomad Empires of mediaeval days ? 

2. Explain the importance in history of the Fall of Con- 
stantinople. 

3. Consider the importance of the geographical position of 
Constantinople, and give a brief sketch of the story of this city 
up to the present day. 



THE LATER MEDIEVAL WORLD 



137 



BOOKS RECOMMENDED FOR FURTHER STUDY 



Section II 



SOUTTAR 

Helmolt . 
Cunningham . 

Hallam 
Ameer Ali 
Robinson, J. H. 



Myers 



Emerton . 

Lavisse et Rambaud 

Bryce 



History of MedicBval Peoples, 

Universal History. 

Essay on Western Civilisation in its 

Economic Aspects. 
History of the Middle Ages. 
Short History of the Saracens. 
Introduction to the History of Western 

Europe. 
MedicBval and Modern History 
Middle Ages. 
Medicsval Europe. 
Histoire Generate. 
Holy Roman Empire. 



SECTION III 
THE MODERN WORLD 

CHAPTER XII 
THE GROWTH OF NATIONS 

WE come now in our World Story to the threshold 
of the Modern World, the characteristics of which 
can be seen best by considering the most distinctive 
points of the history of Europe during the two 
centuries that followed the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. 

Two main features mark off the Modern from the Ancient 
World. 

(i) Rise of " Nationality " — The first of these is the 
development of the notion of " Nationality " in place of 
the mediaeval ideal of a kind of European Commonwealth, 
with one system of law for every kingdom, and close family 
ties and interests for all countries alike. This ideal was 
now to be abandoned, and in its place arose a system of 
Competition between nations — a system that has been called 
" the starting-point of modern history." 

When competition entered into the scheme of things, it 
followed that each country became absorbed in its own 
particular struggle to be first in the race ; and this had two 
important results. The strength of each nation depends 
on the force of each individual member of that nation ; hence 
the growth of " national feeling " implied a very much fuller 
recognition of the rights and personality of the citizen. It 
followed that when the citizen became conscious of his in- 
creased importance, he began to criticize the State which had 

138 



THE GROWTH OF NATIONS 139 

hitherto kept him in order, and to assert his freedom to take a 
hand in its management. 

(ii) Expansion — ^The second distinction that marks off 
the Modern from the Mediaeval World is the sudden and vast 
expansion of European life that took place after the discovery 
of the New World. The growth of sea power, a complete 
revolution of trade and economic life, colonization — all 
followed as a consequence of this wider view of the world ; 
and with these there came a striking increase of energy, 
mental and physical, in almost every department of life. 

The Renaissance — On the mental side we see this new 
energy expressing itself in the Renaissance Movement, a 
name originally given to the awakened interest in the litera- 
ture of Ancient Greece and Rome, which was the legacy of the 
Greek scholars of Constantinople when they were dispersed, 
with their priceless scripts, throughout Western Europe. But 
the Renaissance soon grew to mean more than this. It 
meant the awakening of men's minds to a wider mental 
grasp. The Middle Ages had seen great deeds accomplished, 
heroic struggles, vast reforms, and the steady progress of 
intellectual thought. There is little doubt, indeed, that the 
progress of civilization advanced far more quickly during 
the five centuries that preceded than in the five that followed 
the Fall of the Empire of the East. To those earlier years 
we owe the development of Europe from a state of barbarism 
to civilization, the organization of her various nationalities, 
an ideal of internationalism that kept these nations, when yet 
weak, from rending each other to pieces. We owe to them 
also the ideal of Chivalry, the greatest check upon the evils 
of feudalism, and a rapid and valuable development of art, 
architecture, commerce, and law. But after the thirteenth 
century we notice that the advantages of law and order had 
been very generally accepted, and daily life had ceased to be 
a wild-beast struggle for existence. In spite of more or less 
incessant wars, the comparative safety in which men lived, 
and their limited view of the outside world, might have led 
to a dangerous stage of complacency and sluggish acceptance 
of things as they were. The necessary impetus to further 



140 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

progress came at the end of the fifteenth century under the 
name of this Renaissance, a New Spirit that was to show 
itself under many different forms. Roughly speaking, the 
Renaissance Movement came as a new interest in Ufe, a new 
energy, a desire for novelty, a craving after original thought 
and expression, a wish to experiment and then to wrest from 
Nature her hidden secrets. 

We see the effect of such a spirit in every phase of activity. 
In literature it produced a Shakespeare, a Cervantes ; in 
politics, a Machiavelli ; in philosophy, a Francis Bacon ; in 
science, a Kepler and a Galileo. In art it gave us the " Monna 
Lisa " of Leonardo da Vinci, the " Sistine Madonna " of 
Raphael, the music of Palestrina and Tavemer. In archi- 
tecture it evolved the glorious palaces and churches of 
Florence and Venice, and the domed roof of St. Peter's in 
Rome. In education it replaced the cut-and-dried subjects of 
the " trivium " and " quadrivium " by the study of classical 
literature and of language as a living instrument instead of a 
dead tongue. 

Effect upon Daily Life — The chief characteristic of this 
New Spirit that we shall study briefly here is its effect upon 
the daily life of Europe. 

We have already seen that the general result of the age of 
geographical discovery, following upon a long period of conflict 
and unrest, was to open up to Europe a wide range of com- 
munication with other parts of the world. This possession of 
new trade routes was bound to affect very closely the com- 
mercial and economic life of the continent. 

A century earlier European merchants had been to some 
extent restricted in enterprise. The Mohammedan conquests 
had hemmed them in, so that they could not penetrate south 
or east, nor estabUsh a permanent trade except in the Medi- 
terranean, the Black Sea, the Baltic, the North Sea, and the 
Eastern Atlantic. Even there they found their hands tied 
by regulations such as those that confined the trade of the 
Adriatic to Venice, and that of the Baltic to the merchants of 
the Hanse towns. It was the discovery of the com.pass that 
encouraged mariners to extend their voyages beyond the 



THE GROWTH OF NATIONS 141 

coastal routes, and the knowledge of the existence of a New 
World that opened up both East and West to a vast field of 
new enterprise in colonization and trade. This gives us the 
first reason, not only for the increase of commerce in the 
sixteenth century, but also for the need of reconstruction in 
social life that such an increase implied. 

To begin with, we find a striking change taking place in 
some of the finest cities of Europe, cities which in mediaeval 
days had been the commercial centres of the restricted trade 
of that day. 

In those times the " city state *' had been the centre of 
commercial Hfe and interest. Commerce was regulated by 
the city magnates ; each town or group of towns was respon- 
sible for its own food supply ; each kind of manufacture was 
pretty closely confined to its own particular centre. Thus, in 
Italy, if you wanted cloth, you went to Florence ; or, if arms, 
to Genoa ; or, if glass and silk goods, to Venice. " Foreigners," 
which term included not only aliens, but also all artisans who 
were not " burgesses " or merchants, were excluded. The 
result was to limit the interest of the citizen to his own 
particular town ; for the prosperity of the country as a 
whole he cared very little. 

On city ports, such as Stettin, which had practically com- 
manded the Baltic trade, the opening up of the new trade 
routes had therefore a crushing effect. Left almost derelict 
by those who were once bound to her by strict trade regula- 
tions, she, and all other cities which depended purely on 
commerce for their existence, fell into decay. In contrast 
to her fate stands Antwerp, one of the first cities to throw 
open her gates freely to merchant adventurers of every race. 
Already, by the middle of the sixteenth century, Antwerp had 
attracted the trade of Bruges, once the great commercial 
centre of Northern Europe, by admitting traders without 
restrictions. Now, in the sixteenth century, she welcomed the 
merchants of Spain, the capitahsts of Germany, and developed 
a great "bank," or money market, where capital could be 
borrowed by the adventurer. Thus, by her readiness to adapt 
herself to new conditions, she became the leading city of 



142 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

Europe, till she was destroyed by Spanish oppression in 1576. 
And the result of this spirit of enterprise on her part was to 
make Holland during this period the " carrying nation " of 
the world, doing the business of Europe in north and south, 
east and west. 

Rise of Capitalism — The mention of capitalists brings us 
to another cause of the social revolution of this period. In 
mediaeval days the moneylender or usurer — usually a Jew 
or a Lombard — was looked at askance. We see the public 
opinion even of Shakespeare's day represented in his treat- 
ment of Shylock, and the injustice meted out to the Jews 
by every nation was notorious. As a matter of fact, these 
mediaeval moneylenders lent their money chiefly to the State 
for the payment of mercenaries, a quite unproductive method 
of employing capital. In the early days of the Modem 
World new ways of employing capital had been discovered. 
The organization of the mining capacities of the New W^orld, 
the new lines of trade, all required capital, as much as the 
merchant adventurer when he fitted out his fleet for eastern 
waters. Thus in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the 
" capitahst " became a man of great importance, and power 
passed from the man of war to the man of wealth. 

One effect of this change in economic conditions was to 
put the new capitalist — ^the moneyed man — ^in the place of 
the old gilds, which had done such excellent work in the 
past. But the mediaeval policy which had kept the trading 
bodies separate, and prevented them from interfering with or 
rivalling one another, now had to give way to one that was 
prepared to develop trade on the latest lines, to plant new 
industries, to consider the interests of the State as a whole. 

Agriculture — In the country districts we find much the 
same principle at work, though its effects upon the peasant 
population were not felt till much later. In mediaeval days 
the peasant was attached to his master's estate, and was 
forbidden to move from place to place. Not only was the 
peasant attached thus to the estate of his " lord," but whole 
tracts of land were appropriated by a particular city state 
as its " market." Lower Italy, for example, was the source 



THE GROWTH OF NATIONS 143 

whence Venice obtained her com and eggs, and where she 
controlled all agricultural produce ; while towns in that very 
district had to buy their food in Venice. 

It was the influence of a great Italian thinker, Machiavelli, 
which swept away such restrictions as these, and substituted 
" common action " and the " welfare of the State " for the 
narrower interests of the town or gild. 

One effect of mediaeval days on the agricultural population 
was to be seen for many a day, even in the Modern World. 
Constantly recurring plague, owing to the want of sanitary 
knowledge, combined with long years of war, had lessened the 
number of workers and destroyed vast tracts of once fertile 
land.. Only in those countries where the ruler realized the 
importance of encouraging the food producers were the founda- 
tions of future prosperity truly laid ; and in the race for 
wealth in the early days of the Modem World this was too 
often forgotten. 

On the whole, however, the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries saw a definite breaking down of the barriers between 
the townsman and the countryman, and an increase of common 
intercourse for a mutual benefit that was, in the end, to the 
great advantage of the State. 

We have seen already that this idea of the development 
of the State or Nation, as a whole, and the suppression of 
private and local interests, which was the policy of Machia- 
veUi, came to be one of the leading characteristics of this 
period. 

Let us see, very briefly, how it worked in the case of three 
countries of Europe — Spain, France, and England. 

Spain (1492-1600) — ^The extraordinary good fortune of 
Spain in becoming the patron of Christopher Columbus, after 
Genoa, his own city state, and England had both rejected him, 
at once placed her easily first among European nations owing 
to the discovery of the New World. 

After 1492 the gold of the West Indies, after 1522 the silver 
of Mexico, and eleven years later the silver of Peru, poured 
into her coffers and gave her the wealth for which aU Europe 
was craving in the race for " reconstruction." At her disposal. 



144 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

moreover, were the great German and Genoese capitalists who 
were to organize the vast enterprise of mining and industry 
which followed the discovery of the mines of precious metal 
in America. 

But all this activity and these new outlets across the seas 
meant a heavy demand for increased food supply and manu- 
factures at home. Prices rose rapidly, and there was every 
chance of an equally rapid industrial development among a 
people newly roused by the removal of Moorish oppression 
and the wide outlook in America. But this golden oppor- 
tunity was lost by the shortsighted poUcy of the Spanish 
rulers. Instead of using their stores of wealth to encourage 
agriculture and industry, and to improve the condition of 
the nation, they followed too literally the policy of Machia- 
velli by hoarding their treasures in the coffers of the State 
and so becoming wealthy in name, but not in fact. 

Alarmed by the perfectly natural rise in prices that 
followed the increased demand, the Spanish " Grandees, '* 
always too ready to deride the trader and the merchant ad- 
venturer, pressed the Government to put every possible 
obstacle in the way of the capitahst, and to withdraw from 
the country the French and Italian artisans who were the 
backbone of industry. The wealth of the country was not 
permitted to affect industrial and agricultural Ufe, and as a 
consequence, within a century, Spain had not only failed to 
obtain the world supremacy at which she aimed, but was so 
exhausted that she had fallen hopelessly behind in the com- 
petition of the nations. 

By a curious nemesis, HoUand, her rebel province, 
freed from her rigid rule, became the harbour of exiled subjects 
from the Spanish Netherlands, and the centre of the trade and 
commerce that might well have been hers. Thus "Spain 
failed to derive real advantage from the much vaunted 
American possessions, and the gains which might have en- 
riched the peninsula went to her bitterest enemies." ^ 

France (1590-1650) — In striking comparison stands the 
policy of France, in the days of Henry IV and in the period that 
^ Cunningham, Camb. Mod. Hist., vol. i. 



THE GROWTH OF NATIONS 145 

followed his reign. Henry found a country full of possibilities, 
and himself with a large royal income drawn from taxation ; but 
the land had been devastated by the long " Huguenot Wars/' 
and was in the hands of feudal nobles, possessing almost 
unlimited power over the population of their huge and isolated 
estates. 

He, with the aid of Tully, his minister, at once determined 
to aim at consolidating the nation, and at establishing the 
prosperity of the entire country. This was done in various 
ways. New industries, such as silk, glass, and fine pottery, 
were encouraged and supported by the State. New water- 
ways, canals, and bridges connected up the isolated feudal 
estates and cities ; and the national resources were developed, 
if necessary, by the aid of royal capital. 

In agricultural districts, even the royal power and purse 
could not do much against the sheer weight of the feudal 
nobles ; but on the king's estates an example of enterprise was 
set that had some results, though it was slow enough in taking 
effect. Thus in these days were laid the firm foundations 
of the greatness of France in the seventeenth century, her 
Golden Age. 

There was, however, one drawback to this apparent success. 
When the national prosperity depended so closely on the 
royal purse and supervision, free enterprise dwindled and 
initiative failed. It is not to France that we look for the 
best commercial and colonial development of the Modern 
World in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 

England (1550-1600)— At the middle period of the six- 
teenth century England was far behind Spain and France in 
the race for supremacy. Her own political independence, 
indeed, was at stake, and she had the utmost need of develop- 
ing her own resources. Her schism from the Catholic Church 
threatened to cut her off from absolutely necessary sources 
of supply, for she had no munitions, and the materials 
necessary for making gunpowder, saltpetre and sulphur, 
were controlled by Catholic powers. She had no mining 
industries, and had great difficulty in obtaining iron and 
copper from abroad. Her sea power was in its infancy : she 

lO 



146 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

had practically no native talent or knowledge of new methods 
of such matters as brass-founding or mining. Moreover, the 
royal coffers, in spite of the spoliation of the Church, were 
practically empty. 

Yet within fifty years England was strong enough to 
wrest the supremacy of the sea from Spain, and rich enough 
to rank as one of the foremost commercial countries in the 
world. 

The policy of Cecil, Elizabeth's minister, in the most 
critical years of her reign, is worthy of the highest praise. 

Realizing that there was no money in hand to pay 
mercenaries, although the part they played in the defence 
of the country must be filled, he used all the resources of the 
land to maintain a large, strong, and healthy population, 
and meantime avoided wars on any pretext. Agriculture 
was encouraged by breaking up waste lands, pastures, and 
" commons," and enclosing them for tillage. The old 
vexatious laws that bound the farmer to one particular 
market were removed, and, in order to maintain for it a 
sufficiently high price, the export of corn was encouraged. 
Commerce and agriculture joined hands ; the wool trade 
flourished anew ; the price of cloth increased ; farmer, weaver, 
and wool mercer profited alike by their closer interaction. 

In order to maintain a large seafaring population, the 
fishing trade was encouraged, and people were bound by law 
to eat fish three days a week. To increase the stock of in- 
dustrial skill and commercial activity, foreigners who formed 
companies for brass-founding and mining were welcomed 
to the country. Not only native resources but native in- 
dustries were made the most of, and English hardware and 
sailcloth soon became noted in other lands. AHen " ad- 
venturers " were welcomed also for the introduction of new 
industries, such as the manufacture of glass, paper, starch, 
and soap ; so that England became a haven for skilled work- 
men from the Netherlands, from Greece and Italy and Spain, 
and had her regular " colonies " of these aliens in various 
parts of the country. 

Before the end of the sixteenth century England had 



THE GROWTH OF NATIONS 147 

beaten Spain upon the high seas, and found that her alhance 
was coveted by other countries. Prosperous at home, her 
merchants ploughed the seas in all directions. Their great 
trading companies took the place of the merchant gilds ; and 
in a future chapter we shall see the part they played in the 
New World as well as in the East. 

Looking back on the story of these three nations, Spain, 
France, and England, we see that the aim of the ruler of each 
was to raise his country to the highest pitch of prosperity. 
But Spain made the fatal error of locking up the capital which 
had come in so sudden a manner and in such vast abundance, 
and, having lost her splendid opportunity, fell into the back- 
ground of history. 

France, on the other hand, used the resources of the Crown 
for the benefit of the people, and reaped a golden harvest for 
a while ; but the principle was unsound, and in it might be 
found, even in those early years, the seeds of the Revolution 
that were to shake her foundations in future days. 

Meantime England, stimulated by the action of a Govern- 
ment " hampered by poverty," which aided foreign workers 
and did not scorn to use foreign capital, set to work on in- 
dependent lines. Developed by her middle class, depending 
on both industry and agriculture for her wealth, she gained 
the high road to commercial success through her acceptance 
of the principle of the advantage of bringing all parts of the 
kingdom into close connexion with one another, and of making 
the utmost of all her available resources by sea and land. 



EXERCISES 

1. What are the main general features that mark off the 
Modern from the Mediaeval World ? Explain their bearing on 
Europe. 

2. Trace some of the effects of the Renaissance on Modern 
Europe. 

3. Account for the swift rise and fall of the Spanish Empire ; 
and for the part played by France and England in the sixteenth 
century. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE DISRUPTION OF EUROPE 

(a.d. 15 17-1648) 

THE century that saw the Rise of Nationalism 
and the exploration of the New World was also 
to see the break-up of the Unity of Western 
Christendom. 
During the first twenty years of the sixteenth century 
the storm had been slowly gathering. It needed but a 
spark from the firebrand Luther to explode the thunder-cloud 
over the whole of the Western World. 

The Reformation — Like all other great crises of history, 
the steps leading to it were many and various. No doubt its 
progress was hastened by the Renaissance, with its ideal of 
separate States ; its spirit of rebellion against accepted " 
authority ; its casting away of discipline ; its revival of the 
Greek ideals of pleasure and beauty as the main objects of 
life. Yet the Reformation, which it is supposed to have 
effected, was not a movement towards freedom, since it perse- 
cuted its opponents with the bitterest zeal, and substituted 
the authority of an inspired Book for that of an inspired 
Church. Nor was the cult of beauty and pleasure among its 
aims. 

It may have been hastened by the condition of the Papacy 
in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The fact that the 
centre of Christendom had been removed from Rome to 
Avignon for nearly seventy years (1305-1372), and that French 
influence had then been strongly exercised, had weakened Papal 
authority ; and this had been the case even more in the period 
that followed the return to Rome, when two popes disputed 
for the Chair of Peter. But the mediaeval Catholic was too well 



THE DISRUPTION OF EUROPE 149 

accustomed to distinguish between the man and his office to 
be deeply affected by such happenings as these, or to make 
the laxity often found in the Papal Court a vahd reason for a 
schism that was to rend Europe asunder. There had been 
earher days when those who sat in the Chair of Peter had 
been guilty of many crimes ; but, though men shuddered at the 
guilt of the man, they swerved not a hairsbreadth from 
allegiance to the holy office. 

From another point of view we may see the cause in the 
condition of the Holy Roman Empire, once the firm adherent 
and supporter of the Church that had called her into existence, 
now sunk to the condition of a shadowy German kingdom, 
in the form of petty states only held together by a faint 
hope of imperial revival ; and in her weakness we may 
lookjto find the reason why the Papacy that had been so 
closely connected with her could no longer command the 
allegiance of a united Christendom. No doubt the con- 
dition of Germany in the sixteenth century was such that 
the rulers of the various states were glad of an excuse to 
throw off the yoke of both Emperor and Pope; but this 
is no sufficient cause for the Reformation, since the Papacy 
had long ceased to depend upon the Empire for support. 

The main effect of the Reformation in Europe is easier 
to trace than its manifold causes. For more than a hundred 
years after it was set on foot it involved the Western World 
in a state of permanent political disunion. That was the 
natural outcome of a movement which was all in the direction 
of "individuahsm," that is, the consideration of man as an 
individual rather than as a member of a community, subject 
to the authority and to the rules of that community. Thus, 
as we have seen, while certain countries were preparing to 
cut themselves adrift from the centre of Christendom, the 
idea of "nationalism," with its spirit of concentration on 
its own affairs, combined with the emulation and rivalry 
necessary to its worldly success, was rapidly developing, and a 
death-blow was struck at the old international spirit, with 
its common aims and interests and ideals. 

The purely religious side of the question scarcely enters 



150 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

into the historical view of the Reformation Movement, though 
it has been, perhaps, more often mis-stated than any other 
fact in history. It is nothing less than absurd to account for 
this vast happening by saying that the cause was a revolt 
against Catholic doctrines, especially in the case of indulgences 
and their " sale." 

In the days of Luther the most ignorant peasant knew 
as well as he did that an indulgence was merely a remission 
of the penalties due to sin, a " remission," or " letting off 
the consequences," which could only be granted to a sinner 
who was willing to prove his real repentance and sincere 
desire to atone for his ill-deeds in some practical form. To 
give money aid in building churches and bridges and roads 
was in those days a very ordinary way of showing an honest 
wish for atonement ; and the building of St. Peter's at Rome, 
which Pope Leo X had just taken in hand, was looked upon 
as no unworthy object for the offerings of sinful lay-folk. 

Even if Luther's rebellion against the collection of money 
for this purpose found a sympathetic ground in German 
states, which were longing to cast off all outward shackles of 
obligation, we can scarcely believe that Europe as a whole 
was so deeply interested in religion, and learned in dogma, 
as to make this a sufficient ground for " schism " — ^the 
cutting adrift from the CathoUc Church. The actual cause 
in nearly every case was poUtical, where, as in the case of 
the EngHsh Henry VIII, it was not a matter of domestic 
policy ; and the reUgious aspect scarcely entered into the 
question. 

The Reformation was a revolt against authority ; and 
as on the religious side, the " Protestant " claimed the right 
of private judgment, so on the political side, the subject 
demanded privileges that seemed fatal to anything like 
despotism. Yet, curiously enough, the EngUsh Reformation 
was accomplished during the Tudor despotism ; and the 
ultimate result of the whole movement was a marked re- 
action towards absolute rule in most parts of Europe. 

Such are some of the contradictions which are concerned 
with an event which plunged Europe into incessant war for 



THE DISRUPTION OF EUROPE 151 

a century and a half and, by dividing nation against nation 
and kingdom against kingdom, destroyed the unity of 
Christendom. 

The Emperor Charles V — The ruler of the Holy Roman 
Empire at that crisis was a sullen Spanish Fleming, Charles V. 
As the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain on the 
one hand, and of the Emperor Maximilian on the other, 
his Empire extended over the Netherlands, Spain, and 
Spanish America, the " two Sicilies," and the central kingdoms 
of Europe. 

As head of the Empire Charles was obliged to appear as 
the Champion of Christendom against Luther, who in 1520 
broke with Rome once for all. We see him, indeed, not only 
branding Luther as a heretic at the Diet of Worms in 1521, 
but declaring himself prepared to sacrifice his domains, his 
friends, his life, his very soul, to root out the Lutheran heresy. 
Yet he was not above using the excommunicated monk as a 
catspaw against his own enemies, and in 1527 allowing a 
host of miscreants, Lutherans, and German and Spanish 
malcontents, to march against Pope Clement VII and to 
attack Rome. 

The sack of the capital of Christendom followed, and for 
eight days " murder, lust, sacrilege, avarice, held high 
festival ; and Spaniards outdid Germans in riot and pillage. 
Nine months passed before the lawless soldiers quitted their 
prey.*' 

It was the outward symbol of the inner spirit of revolt ; 
but Rome herself recovered from the great pillage with the 
same elasticity with which she had met other and equally 
severe shocks. Within the next eighteen years the Council 
of Trent set on foot her own "Counter Reformation"; and 
in the midst of this Charles learnt that North Germany 
was in hot revolt against both him and the ancient faith. 
It was the last blow to the unity of the tottering Empire. 

From the historic moment when Charles was forced to 
flee over the Brenner to the eastern limits of his dominions, 
there was no putting a stop to the flow of insurrection. 
Germany was split into two distinct divisions, and South 



152 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

Germany remained Catholic, while North Germany became 
Lutheran. Across the Baltic passed the new beliefs and, 
still more, the new spirit of revolt, finding there a fertile 
soil ; and Sweden, Norway, Finland all threw off the Catholic 
faith. 

The North German princes, in the minority as yet, now 
looked beyond the borders of their own country and found 
an opportunity for alliance with a kingdom that had long 
gazed with jealous eye on the Empire of Spain. France, 
still strongly Catholic, was induced, for political reasons, to 
throw in her lot with the Lutheran League, and thus to 
become a thorn in the side of the ruler of Catholic Spain. 
And, meantime, France herself was becoming infected by the 
teaching of the followers of Zwingh, who had stirred up 
Switzerland to civil war, and of Cahdn, the " Protestant 
Pope," who had set up his own peculiar form of Protestantism 
in Geneva, and had sent forth his teachers into France and 
England, Scotland, and Holland. 

By the end of the sixteenth century the disruption of 
Europe was fairly complete. At the beginning of that epoch 
all Europe, save Russia and the Balkan Peninsula, owed 
allegiance to the Papacy. At the end of it North Germany, 
Switzerland, the Scandinavian Peninsula, Holland, England, 
and Scotland had thrown off this allegiance, and the unity of 
Western Christendom had vanished. 

Effects of the Schism — Some of the effects of this may 
be glanced at. 

In England the result of the Reformation principles was 
seen in the struggle between Crown and Parliament (1628- 
1688). Here we find the latter, representing the Puritan 
or ultra-Protestant body, in revolt against kings who tried 
in vain to assume the infallible authority of the Papacy 
they repudiated. The struggle swayed backwards and 
forwards with varying fortune, and was not ended till the 
Revolution of 1688, which deposed the autocrat James H, and 
placed a Protestant Dutchman, Wilham of Orange, on the 
throne. 

The Low Countries (1550-1579) — In Spain we see the 



THE DISRUPTION OF EUROPE 153 

country, so lately the most powerful in Europe, weakened 
and broken by the Revolt of the Netherlands. These 
countries had been held as part of the Roman Empire until 
the days of Philip II (1556). But their distance from the 
centre of rule, their wide differences in race and speech, their 
strong trade position, had long tended to make their cities 
independent petty states. When the religious tie was 
broken and was followed by persecution on the part of Spain, 
CathoHcs and Protestants joined in raising the flag of revolt 
against " foreign " rule. Under William the Silent the 
seven northern provinces, all Protestant, declared their 
independence of Spain, and became the Dutch Republic of 
Holland, henceforth to take a leading part in the story of 
Europe (1579). The ten Southern provinces, the nucleus 
of modern Belgium, which were of mingled Flemish and 
Walloon race, and CathoUc in behef, remained faithful to 
Spain. 

France (1530-1590) — In France, where the Protestant 
Calvinists were known as Huguenots, the Reformation Move- 
ment took a strongly political character. Many of the leading 
nobles had embraced the new doctrines as a pretext for throw- 
ing off allegiance to the king, and for maintaining themselves 
in a state of feudal independence within walled cities. A long 
conflict laid unhappy France waste during the middle part 
of the sixteenth century. A massacre of the Huguenots, 
ordered to be carried out on St. Bartholomew's Day (1572), 
through the influence of Catherine de Medici, mother of the 
young king Charles IX, fanned the flame of revolt ; and 
nothing but the religious indifference of Henry Bourbon, King 
of Navarre, saved France from another long civil war. As 
Henry IV, son of a Lutheran mother, Jeanne d'Albret, but 
willing to become a nominal Catholic for the sake of a kingdom, 
he became the idol of both parties. To him France owed the 
Edict of Nantes in 1598, which allowed private freedom of 
worship to all Huguenots, and was the first declaration of its 
kind to establish the fact that there was nothing to prevent two 
kinds of faith from existing in the same kingdom, at the same 
time, without reHgious strife. 



154 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

Germany (1618-1648) — In Germany, after fifty years of 
growing hatred between the Protestants and CathoHcs, the 
flame flared up anew in the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). 

Very briefly, the cause of this was the attempt of the 
Emperor Ferdinand II, of the House of Hapsburg, to turn 
the German Empire into a military monarchy governed by 
Austria. The petty princes, on the other hand, aimed at com- 
plete independence of imperial rule. Thus we find Spain 
and Catholic Germany united against Protestant Germany in 
alliance with Denmark and Holland, and WaUenstein, the 
Emperor's great general, bidding fair to crush the insurgents, 
weakened as they were by their own internal quarrels between 
Lutherans and Calvinists. 

The long war resolved itself into a series of struggles in 
various parts of the Empire. First, Bohemia declared her in- 
dependence, but was crushed and forced to return to the 
CathoHc faith. Then the King of Denmark was driven out of 
the contest, and all North Germany bade fair to fall into the 
hands of WaUenstein. 

At this critical moment there appeared upon the scene 
Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, who entered the contest 
not only as a champion of the Lutheran religion, but in the 
hope of conquering North Germany and annexing it to Sweden. 
Though he fell at Lutzen at the moment of victory, this " Lion 
of the North ' ' succeeded in getting what he wanted in the 
shape of a " bastion " on the Baltic, which would give Sweden 
the control of the sea of that name. 

After the death of Gustavus, the struggle still continued, 
fostered now by Richelieu, the wily French diplomat, whose 
policy was still to weaken the Hapsburgs through the disunion 
of Germany. Not till 1648 did the Treaty of Westphaha end 
a war which left all the combatants exhausted. By this 
treaty, religious liberty was granted to Germany ; but France 
obtained Alsace, rights over the bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and 
Verdun, and important territories in Germany. The end 
of the struggle left France also in many respects the heir to 
power once held by the House of Austria. To Sweden fell the 
western part of Pomerania and the bishopric of Bremen, which 



THE DISRUPTION OF EUROPE 155 

gave her control over the mouths of three great German rivers. 
The independence of Switzerland and the Netherlands was 
recognized. Most significant of all, the state then known as 
Brandenburg, soon to be known as Prussia, annexed Eastern 
Pomerania and some important bishoprics, and thus laid 
the foundation of her future role in Germany. 

From that time the Hapsburg princes ruled Austria alone ; 
and Germany, left entirely disunited, had to face at least a 
century of reconstruction, before she to any degree had recovered 
from the ravages of the Thirty Years War. 

Effect o! Thirty Years War on Germany — Nothing, 
perhaps, serves to show more clearly the devastating effect of a 
long war than the history of Germany for the next hundred 
years. The conflict had been not only a rehgious but a civil 
war, fought largely by mercenaries from every country in 
Europe, whose object was to plunder their employers as well 
as to fight for them. 

The country, once smiling and fertile under the incessant 
toil of a nation of agriculturists, lay desolate under the stress of 
constant marches, occupations, and evacuations. No peasant 
had existed in safety for a generation ; the farmer had forgotten 
how to plough and the labourer how to reap. In Bohemia 
six thousand prosperous villages had disappeared. Bavaria, 
once well populated with flourishing traders, now lay a famine- 
stricken waste. The once smihng pastures and vineyards of 
the Upper Rhine now stood barren and neglected by a 
population that had fled to safer lands. 

Yet, in face of all this misery and poverty, the bankruptcy 
of the rulers caused a heavy burden of service or money taxa- 
tion to be exacted from the peasants. Under the^ weight of 
these exactions, the free peasant sank to the condition of serf- 
dom; arable lands "reverted" to forests, through which wild 
beasts ranged unchecked ; and for more than a generation 
one-third of Northern Germany was left uncultivated. 

With the burgher class things were as bad. There was 
little trade or industry. The old Hanseatic League of Mer- 
chants, with its proud motto, " To navigate is necessary for us ; 
to Hve is not," was broken up. Their once flourishing foreign 



156 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

trade fell into the hands of Holland, and the Dutch, now 
masters of the outlets of the Rhine, took their place as the 
*' Carriers of Europe." 



EXERCISES 

1. Give a brief sketch of the fortunes of the House of Austria 
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 

2. Trace some of the main effects of the Great Schism on 
Europe. 

3. What changes were wrought in the map of Europe by the 
Thirty Years War ? 



CHAPTER XIV 

NEW WORLDS FOR OLD : 
AMERICA AND INDIA 

(a.d. 1490-1700) 

WE have seen that one of the most striking features of 
the Modern World is the outburst of exploration 
and colonization, which, in the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries, made New Worlds to " swim 
into the ken " of the Old. Most of these had, indeed, pos- 
sessed ancient civilizations of their own; but, as far as the 
Old World was concerned, they only came to hfe again under 
the quickening touch of the explorer and the colonist. 

In earlier days the motive of exploration had been either a 
spirit of curiosity and enterprise, or a frank desire for money 
and trade opportunities. Thus one of the earliest pioneers 
was a Portuguese Prince, Henry the Navigator, who, in the 
latter part of the fifteenth century, explored the West African 
Coast and set on foot a lively trade with the natives in gold- 
dust and ivory. 

It was another Portuguese sea-dog who, in 1484, set up at 
the mouth of the River Congo a stone pillar, topped by a 
stone cross soldered on with lead, as a token of Portuguese 
possession. He was also the first to set on foot the shameful 
trade in slaves in which all Europe was to share. 

Jealousy of Portuguese success brought England and 
France, to a small extent, into the game of exploration in 
these earlier days ; and missionary enterprise, especially in 
the case of the courageous followers of Ignatius Loyola, the 
soldier founder of the Jesuits, began to play no unimportant 
part during the sixteenth century. 

But, by the middle of the seventeenth century, new motives 

157 



158 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

for exploration were coming into play. The rapid increase of 
European trade called for new and vast supplies of raw 
material ; and the growing substitution of manufactures for 
agriculture all over Europe demanded a wider field of com- 
merce. Colonies were now desired, not as a mere refuge for 
those whom reUgious intolerance had driven from their 
motherland, nor as a vent for surplus population, but as 
estates which could be systematically worked to provide raw 
materials for commerce at home. 

We have seen that the old Gilds, with their merchant 
traders, had been by the latter part of the sixteenth century 
transformed into great trading companies, in whose hands 
lay the task of obtaining and providing this material. It 
was the East India Company, as we shall see, which first 
obtained for Britain a foothold in India through its 
" factories " on the coast, and thus laid the foundations of 
our future Empire. And it was the haughty refusal of the 
Spaniards to soil their hands with industrial systems, re- 
garded by them as only " fit for Moors or Jews," which in 
great part accounts for the failure of Spain to build a colonial 
Empire in a field in wMch she stood undeniably first during 
the sixteenth century. 

We have seen how Spain had lost her opportunity in 
Europe ; let us now look across the seas at the story of the 
New World to which Columbus had given her access. The 
main cause of the discovery of America undoubtedly lay in 
that spirit of curiosity and adventure which we have seen to 
be the essence of the Renaissance. 

Discovery of the New World — The idea of the possibiUty 
of a western continent dates back to the days of the Ancient 
World. As far back as the age of Seneca, in the first century 
of Christendom, we find the dramatist philosopher writing 
of " a vast new continent beyond the sea which shall be dis- 
closed when this Ancient World doth westward stretch her 
bounds." 

Eight centuries later, in the time of the Enghsh Alfred, 
Northmen had colonized Iceland, already inhabited by 
Irish Celts, and a hundred years later Erik the Red, another 



NEW WORLDS FOR OLD 159 

Viking rover, had discovered Greenland. Leif, the son of 
Erik, went farther, and, saiHng nine days south-west of Green- 
land, landed on a rocky coast, which seems to have been 
Newfoundland. South of this he pushed on to " Markland," 
the modern Nova Scotia, and after two days' sail spent a winter 
on a river bank in a new continent called by them Vinland, 
or the Land of the Vine. There, in what is now known to 
have been New England, part of Rhode Island and Massa- 
chusetts, the Northmen founded a colony and commenced 
a trade with the native Eskimos in fur and timber. This 
colony flourished till the middle of the fourteenth century, 
when it was abandoned. Nearly three centuries later its 
site was to be the scene of the landing of the Mayflower and 
the settlement of the Puritan emigrants in New England 
and Massachusetts. 

The actual discovery of America belongs then to the early 
part of the eleventh century, and several rehcs of this age 
are to be found there. A stone inscribed in runes, the ancient 
form of Northern writing, may be seen in the Taunton 
River, Massachusetts, which declares that " Thorfinn, with 
151 Norse seafaring men, took possession of this land." The 
skeleton of a Viking wearing a curious belt made of brass 
tubes has been found in the FaU River ; and a round tower 
at Newport, bearing traces of Northern architecture, belongs 
probably to the twelfth century. 

Another possible . claim to the discovery of America 
comes from Ireland. When the Christian Celts were driven 
from Iceland by the Northmen they appear to have sailed 
south to a colony on the eastern coast of America, already 
settled by some Irish rovers and caUed by the Northmen 
" Mickle Ireland." Carohna, Ontario, and Quebec have each 
in turn been identified with this spot. 

Other discoverers may have anticipated Columbus, the 
best authenticated being the Venetian brothers, Nicolo and 
Antonio Zeus, at the end of the fourteenth century. They 
seem, however, to have obtained their information not at 
first hand, but from a sailor who told them of regions of the 
west inhabited partly by cannibals, but partly by civiHzed 



160 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

people who dwelt in a great country with towns and 
temples. 

The story of Columbus is too well known to be told here. 
The most striking part of it is his anticipation of our modern 
notions as to the shape of the earth, which, he maintained, 
was spherical, not flat ; and yet, on the other hand, the error he 
maintained to the day of his death in believing that the con- 
tinent he discovered was a part of Eastern Asia. 

It was a fortunate accident that led the Spanish king 
and queen to patronize the Genoese sailor, for on the founda- 
tions of his discoveries the future Empire of Spain was to be 
built. Unity of territory had been brought about by the 
marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile ; 
but wealth was sorely needed to enrich a country impoverished 
by the long war which drove the Moors from Spain. 

The finding of gold, therefore, in an India to which the 
Genoese claimed to discover a short cut, was the bait of the 
whole scheme for Ferdinand ; and he was the more ready 
to accept it that he realized that the Turks, with Constantin- 
ople in their hands, could close the Eastern route to the 
land of gold and the source of future trade. 

By sailing westward from Europe over the ocean, Colum- 
bus hoped to reach Zipango (Japan) and Cathay (China), 
and thence to take the road to India with ease. The Bahamas 
meant to him the discovery of the continent of Asia, and he 
called them the Indian Islands accordingly ; while Cuba 
was supposed by him to be part of Asia itself, hitherto 
unexplored, and part of the realm of the Great Khan of 
Cathay. 

The name America was given to commemorate the voyage 
of Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine sailor, also in the service 
of Spain, who claimed to have discovered the mainland of 
America in 1497. A more important person is one Ferdinand 
Magellan, who in the reign of Charles V of Spain actually 
sailed round the southern cape of South America and, by 
crossing the Pacific, reached the Philippines. There he was 
killed in a fight with the natives, but his one remaining ship 
and a few sailors survived to bring back the news to Spain 



NEW WORLDS FOR OLD 161 

of the circumnavigation of the globe and of the existence of 
a great new world entirely separated from Asia. 

When Columbus had made his famous discovery of the 
New World he had declared, " I have only opened the door 
for others to enter." One of the first to do so was Fernando 
Cortes, the Conqueror of Mexico in 15 19. From his account 
we can get to know a good deal of the conditions and character 
of the early story of America, though much of it still belongs 
to the Age of Myths. 

Mayas and Aztecs — For nearly three hundred years after 
the discoveries of Columbus the Spanish colonial Empire 
included Florida in North America, New Spain or Mexico, 
CaUfornia, Central America, South America, and the West 
Indies. Of the races north of Florida Spain knew little. 
These aboriginal " Indians," as they are still called, were then 
in a state of barbarism ; but this was far from being the case 
with the inhabitants of Mexico or Central America, and the 
northern districts of South America. Just as Central Asia, 
once the home of the finest and oldest civilizations in the world, 
had become by the end of the Middle Ages a desolate waste 
of buried cities, so in the early part of the sixteenth century 
Cortes found traces in Mexico of an ancient people well 
advanced in knowledge of art and hieroglyphic literature, 
builders of noble palaces and temples, knowing enough 
science to use a calendar of three hundred and sixty-five days, 
builders of cities now buried under the forests and jungles 
of the Mexican plateau and the plains of Central America. 

These Mayas of Yucatan and Mexico seem to have been 
displaced late in the eighth century by tribes of people known 
as Toltecs, who descended from the North upon the lake 
country round the present city of Mexico and built fine 
temples and houses that earned for them the name of 
" Architects." 

Some time during the fourteenth century the Aztecs took 
their place, bringing with them, or borrowing from the 
original inhabitants, a knowledge of the arts of building and 
metal working that was apparently well in advance of that 
of the Europe of that day and not far behind that of Asia. 
II 



162 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

But along with this were to be found barbaric ideas such as 
that which demanded war every twenty days in order to 
provide bodies for their cannibal feasts, and for the human 
sacrifices without which they firmly believed the Sun would 
cease to exist. 

Conquest of Mexico — These were the people whom 
Cortes, on his arrival, found in possession of an Empire extend- 
ing from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific and ruled by a 
chief known as Montezuma. The natives were skilled in 
a pecuUar kind of music ; they had an organized system of 
labour, though they kept no animals for this purpose, and 
used dogs only for food. Their political institutions were 
about on a level with those of the last Saxon kings, but their 
stores of gold and silver so dazzled the eyes of the Spanish 
invaders, that they thought them far more civiUzed than they 
were in reality. Their chiefs used armour made of thin 
plates of gold or silver, over which was thrown a cloak of 
gorgeous featherwork ; and the warriors wore a close vest of 
quilted cotton " so thick as to be impenetrable to the Hght 
missiles of Indian warfare." 

The account of the meeting between Cortes and Monte- 
zuma shows the chieftain borne on a golden palanquin blazing 
with burnished gold. The Spaniard and his men passed 
through avenues lined with houses whose fiat roofs were 
protected by parapets and covered with masses of growing 
plants. " Occasionally a great square intervened, surrounded 
by porticoes of stone and stucco ; or a pyramidal temple 
reared its colossal bulk crowned with its tapering sanctu- 
aries and altars blazing with inextinguishable fires. But 
what most impressed the Spaniards were the throngs of 
people who swarmed through the streets and on the canals." 

The natives at first took Cortes for a god and treated him 
with the highest honours ; but he, by a dastardly act of 
treachery, seized the person of their ruler and put himself 
at the head of the government. When this had made him 
master of the city, the hoards of a long line of ancestors were 
poured out at his feet by the abject Montezuma. 

" The gold alone," we read, " was sufficient to make three 



NEW WORLDS FOR OLD 163 

great heaps . . . the greatest portion was in utensils and 
various kinds of ornaments and curious toys, together with 
imitations of birds, insects, and flowers. There were also 
quantities of collars, bracelets, and other trinkets in which the 
gold and featherwork were richly powdered with pearls and 
precious stones." 

The Mexican warriors, however, showed more spirit than 
their leader, and chased their treacherous guests from the 
district. But Cortes reappeared with two brigantines, built 
for the purpose, upon the waters of the lake on which the 
city of Mexico stood, overcame the resistance of its defenders, 
and rased its buildings to the ground. 

This was in 1521, and in the next year Cortes sent to 
Spain two vessels loaded with treasure. These were captured 
by Verrazano, a Florentine captain in the service of France, 
and handed over to the amazed French king. " Why ! " cried 
Francis, "the Emperor can carry on war against me by 
means of the riches he draws from the West Indies alone, 
and now he can draw also on Mexico." 

Deciding that France must also have her share of the 
spoil of the New World, he ordered the successful Florentine 
to secure for him an5d;hing that was left untouched by the 
enterprise of Spain and Portugal. The shore from Florida to 
Newfoundland was as yet unclaimed, and this was annexed 
by Verrazano under the name of New France. Part of this 
region, round the Gulf of the River St. Lawrence, became 
the scene of French colonization in years to come. 

Meantime, Spain had gone farther afield, and, in 1532, 
Pizarro had invaded the territory of the Incas of Peru and 
obtained from them fresh stores of wealth. In the course of 
the next few years swarms of Spaniards settled in these parts 
of America, intermarried with the natives, and produced the 
mixed race which is found there to this day. 

Effects 0! Discovery of the New World — Leaving the 
fascinating story of exploration and discovery, let us see 
the immediate effects of the discovery of the New World on 
the Old. The first thing to notice is the enormous increase of 
wealth for Spain, wealth which formed the foundation of the 



164 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

powerful Empire of Charles V, and made that country for a 
brief period the foremost in Europe. In the shape of money, 
this gold and silver of Mexico and Peru passed into all the 
countries of Europe in return for imported goods. As money 
became more plentiful, prices and wages both rose, and capital, 
as we have seen, began to be more widely employed in industry. 

Then new articles of food, clothing, and building material 
flowed in from the New World, and began by degrees to raise 
the whole standard of living. Potatoes, chocolate, quinine, 
cane-sugar, furs, and tobacco are only a few amongst the 
many things we are now inclined to call indispensable, but 
which were almost unknown before the discovery of America. 

Lastly, through the constant emigration that now took 
place from Europe to America, a new outlet was opened 
for the energy of her more restless sons and daughters, and 
the foundation was laid of the great colonies of the future. 
For these and other reasons into which want of space forbids 
us to enter here, we may say with truth that " the opening of 
the Atlantic to continuous exploration is the most momentous 
step in the history of man's occupation of the earth." 

Let us now turn eastward, and see how Europe was 
beginning to get into touch with the world of India. 

The Opening up of India: The Empire of the Great 
Mogul (Second Half of Sixteenth Century) — The reputation of 
India as a land of gold and precious stones, and more especi- 
ally as a new outlet for trade, had made that land the lodestar 
of the Middle Ages. 

In his search for a new trade route thither, when the 
Mediterranean was barred by Moslem pirates, the Portu- 
guese, Bartholomew Diaz, had sailed round the most southerly 
point of Africa, to which " the captain and his company gave 
the name Stormy, because of the dangers and tempests that 
had beset them in the rounding of it ; but when they came 
home, the king (the father of a yet earlier navigator. Prince 
Henry of Portugal) gave it a fairer name. He caUed it the 
Cape of Good Hope, because it awoke the hope that India, 
so much desired and so long sought, would be found at last." 

And found it was by the Portuguese Vasco da Gama, 



NEW WORLDS FOR OLD 165 

who landed on the west coast of India in 1498, and thus 
effected a junction between West and East that was never 
again to be entirely severed. Before many more years had 
passed, the Portuguese had trading posts and factories all 
along the coast. 

Let us look for a minute at the history of this great 
country. When we last read of the progress of India, we 
saw that she was on the verge of a strong wave of Moham- 
medanism, in which wave she was submerged from the eleventh 
to the eighteenth century. 

The first half of this period is full of confusion, due to 
the constant feuds between Hindu and Mohammedan, which 
made them centuries of warfare. Some time during this 
interval India broke up into hundreds of petty states ruled 
by petty princes. 

India : The Empire ol the Great Mogul (1556-1700)— 
The first attempt at amalgamation was made by one Akbar, 
who from the year 1556 founded the vast Mogul Empire. 
Akbar has well been called the greatest ruler who ever sat 
upon an Indian throne. Strong and just, the friend of 
scholars, a philosopher, scientist, general, and statesman, 
he, by strength of will and moral force, overthrew the 
Mohammedan dynasty, carved out the Empire of Delhi, and 
proceeded to extend his rule from Afghanistan to the Bay 
of Bengal, and from the Himalayas to a line south of Surat. 

In his days a rule of toleration was imposed for Mussul- 
man, Brahmin, and Catholic missionary ahke. His vast 
dominion was subject to a fair rate of taxation instead of to 
the impositions of cheating officials, and taxes were readily 
remitted when times were bad. By substituting a uniform 
currency for the hundreds of different ones then existing, 
he improved the condition of commerce by leaps and bounds 
and gave his Empire a half-century of prosperity and peace. 

To the court of his son Jehangir came the EngHshman 
Sir Thomas Roe, in the early years of the seventeenth century 
(1615-1618), who afterwards spoke with awe and respect of 
the splendour and display of the brilliant Eastern court, and 
of the toleration shown to Christians and to Europeans in 



166 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

general. But he noted also the drunken orgies of the king, 
who professed to be a strict Mohammedan, the tyranny and 
corruption of his officials, the loose and weak administra- 
tion. " The time will come," he wrote, " when all in these 
kingdoms will be in great combustion." 

For a while the fulfilment of this prophecy was deferred. 
The influence of a wise and beautiful queen, Mir Jehan, 
" Light of the World," was all for good ; and under her 
stepson, Shah Jehan, the Mogul Empire became a proverb 
for all that wealth and prosperity can bestow. The palaces 
of Delhi, the marble mosques, the wonderful " Taj-i-Mahal," 
the grave of that " Light of the Harem," Nur-i-Mahal, with 
its crystal and marble and exquisite peacock throne of 
precious stones, all served to gain for Shah Jehan the title 
of " Magnificent." 

Yet less than a century later the kingdom had sunk to 
the lowest point of misery and weakness, and the aUen people 
from France and England were settling with impunity upon 
the eastern coast-line. 

As the representative of the ** Gorgeous East," India had 
laid the foundation of the prosperity of Genoa, of Venice, and 
of Pisa, and later had stirred the Portuguese to become her 
first European settlers since the brief invasion of Alexander. 

In the early seventeenth century India was brought 
again into touch with Europe by the visits of Catholic mis- 
sionaries, and by the year 1613 the East India Company 
of England had a trading settlement firmly established at 
Surat. Favour was shown the traders by the Great Mogul, 
who gave them permission to carry on their trade at certain 
stations along. the coast. Next year his goodwill was in- 
creased ; for an EngHsh physician. Dr. Broughton, saved the 
life of his favourite child. As his fee, the latter obtained 
trading rights upon the River Hooghly, which gave the EngHsh 
their first footing in Bengal. By the year 1640, though the 
idea of an Indian Empire was as yet undreamed of, the 
British, represented by the East India Company, were firmly 
established in Surat, Madras, and Bengal, and less than a 
century later were in active rivalry with the merchants 



NEW WORLDS FOR OLD 167 

whom the French Government had estabUshed on the south- 
east coast at Chandernagore and Pondicherry. 

India in the Eighteenth Century — ^At the beginning 
of the eighteenth century the last great Emperor of the 
Moguls had passed away, and in the interval of confusion 
that followed, Dupleix, a clever young governor of the 
French " Company of the Indies," was quick to seize his 
opportunity. It was a golden one, for the Viceroy and 
Nizam, the chief officers of the late Emperor, together with 
all the smaller native princes, had shaken off their allegiance 
and made their various domains independent. Immediately 
the dismembered Empire became the prey of outside foes. 
A Persian monarch sacked many of the rich cities ; the 
powerful Mahratta tribes spread themselves over Central India. 

This was the moment for Dupleix to change the status of 
the French from that of mere traders to that of masters. 
His first step was to fortify Pondicherry, the earliest settle- 
ment of the French, and, having allied himself with some of 
the petty princes, to raise an army of native (Sepoy) soldiers. 
With this he attacked Madras, and for the next few years, 
while the Seven Years War was raging in Europe, the story 
of India is that of the struggle between French and British 
for the vast and invertebrate Empire. It was Clive who 
saved India for the British, and the battle of Plassey, in 1757, 
that made them masters of Bengal, the richest province of 
that land. 

The East India Company remained the rulers of India 
until the horrors of the Mutiny of 1857 brought home to 
Europe the drawbacks of this kind of government. In 1877 
the title of Empress of India was first held by an British 
sovereign, and under British protection the land is now ruled 
by native princes, though the administration is carried on for 
the most part by British officials under the Viceroy. 

EXERCISE 
Trace the effects upon Europe 

{a) of the discovery of America ; 
{b) of the opening up of India. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE ERA OF COLONIZATION 

(1600-1900) 

THE English in America — ^The new spirit of coloniza- 
tion that had lasted well into the seventeenth century 
affected America earher than the golden world of 
India; and there the struggle between French and 
English was to assume far greater proportions. 

Before the reign of Charles II a steady stream of emi- 
grants from English shores had established themselves in 
various parts of the country north of Mexico and south of 
the river St. Lawrence. That fine pioneer, Captain John 
Smith, had shown these early empire-makers the import- 
ance of labour and discipline in founding new settlements, 
and had done much to settle the colony of Virginia, left 
derelict after the first settlement made by Sir Walter Raleigh. 
The Pilgrim Fathers, driven from their native land by the 
uncompromising Anglicanism of James I, had founded New 
England, and put the " fear of the Englishman " into the 
heart of the Redskin aborigines ; and another band of Puritan 
exiles in the reign of Charles I, " bidding farewell with weep- 
ing eyes and sobbing voices to the land whose cruelty could 
not efface their love," had founded the colony of Massa- 
chusetts. 

The " States " of North America — Their story is one 
of constant dread of Indian attacks, of incessant warfare, 
of hardly won security. But round Massachusetts in the 
North and Virginia in the South there presently grew up 
eleven colonies, separated not only by distance but by 
differences of faith and caste. 

Thus Maryland, one of the Southern States, founded 

168 



THEiERA OF COLONIZATION 169 

by persecuted Catholics, and Carolina, settled by penniless 
nobles of the days of Charles II, had nothing in common 
with the sturdy Puritans of New England, and were, in fact, 
entirely separated from them by the Dutch colony of New 
Netherland, occupied by the Dutch West India Company. 

When England wrested this latter state from Holland and 
called it New York, a line of connexion between the colonies 
scattered along the coast-line, from Florida to the mouth 
of the St. Lawrence, was established for the first time, and 
this was further strengthened by the Quaker foundation of 
Pennsylvania. 

By the time of George II, who gave his name to the Southern 
colony of Georgia, thirteen colonies existed in North America, 
which, since the days of Charles II, had become in the eyes 
of the Mother Country a most useful field for the provision 
of such raw material as sugar and cotton. 

It was, however, the fur trade with the Indians that most 
attracted Great Britain ; and in 1688 Prince Rupert, mindful 
of the district discovered by the explorer, Henry Hudson, 
a century earlier, sent out a band of men who presently 
formed the nucleus of the Hudson Bay Company and spread 
their net over a region three times the size of India. 

^ With the vast tract north of the St. Lawrence River 
was granted " the whole and entire trade and traffic to and 
from all havens, bays, creeks, rivers, lakes, and seas into which 
they shall find entrance or passage, with all the natives and 
people inhabiting the territories aforesaid." 

The French in America (1608-1740)— This was in 1688. 
Eighty years earlier, however, the land Just north of the great 
river St. Lawrence had been explored by the Frenchman 
Samuel de Champlain, who had set up a fort at Quebec, and 
in 161 1 had founded Montreal. Under his governorship the 
unknown regions of Canada were explored by fearless Jesuit 
missionaries, whose temporary stations often became the 
site of future cities. By the year 1632 the French held the 
basin of the St. Lawrence River and the vaguely defined 
region of Acadia, which was probably the district now known 
as Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. 



170 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

Encouraged by the success met with in these parts, the 
minister of Louis XIV, the great Colbert, determined to build 
up a vast French empire across the seas. Regardless of 
British rights and claims, he granted to a French trading 
company the right of colonizing America, from Hudson Bay 
to the river Amazon, by the simple process of " killing or 
conquering the natives or colonists of such European nations 
as are not our allies." 

One of the first steps towards the end was taken when 
Robert de la Salle explored the unknown region of the 
Mississippi, planted a colony at the mouth of that river, 
and named it Louisiana in honour of the king. The town of 
New Orleans was built ; and having thus obtained command of 
the great waterway, the next step was obviously to connect it 
with the river St. Lawrence by means of a long chain of forts. 

French and English Colonists (1740-1763)— This was an 
open challenge to the British colonies, which were not only 
prevented from advancing westward, but were threatened 
by extinction if the French chose to push their settlements 
nearer the eastern sea-board. 

Thus there began that long struggle between French and 
English colonists, reflecting all too well the spirit of the 
frequent wars which, in those years, were devastating a Europe 
absorbed in conflict over the so-called Balance of Power. 

In the New World the fight was for a French colonial 
empire that was to support the imperial needs of Louis XIV. 
But this selfish policy overreached itself. Without aid from 
the Mother Country the scheme was bound to fail. 

It was the policy of the energetic French governor, 
Duquesne, who built a new line of forts completely shutting 
the British out of the district from the Ohio to Niagara, that 
first brought Washington upon the scene. But Washington 
met with utter defeat, as did the English general Braddock ; 
for the French had the Indians on their side, and when these 
Redskins had once realized the joys of victory, they swooped 
upon the peaceful homesteads of the colonists with burning 
brands and tomahawks, and swept them out of existence. 

A grim revenge was taken by the British Government at 



THE ERA OF COLONIZATION 171 

home. Years earlier the French settlement of Acadia had 
fallen into British hands, but the original settlers had been 
allowed to live there in peace and security. These were now 
all driven forth from their quiet farms and forced to find a 
home elsewhere in strange lands. 

*« Waste are those pleasant farms and the farmers for ever 

departed, 
Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of 

October 
Seize them and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far over 

the ocean." ^ 

A more justifiable retaliation was the action of Wolfe, 
who, in face of dire peril, took Quebec from the French, and 
made the British masters of North America from the Arctic 
Ocean to the borders of Florida and Mexico. 

Never again was there a chance of French dominion in 
Canada. Yet the name of France lives on in the language and 
religion, the laws and customs, of many thousands of the in- 
habitants of Canada, some of whom, through intermarriage 
with the Indian tribes, are of mixed race. 

The Peace of Paris, which robbed France of all her North 
American colonies save Louisiana, was signed in 1763. 

The Independence 0! the « States" (1765-1776)— Thirteen 
years later was signed another historic document, the 
Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed all the North 
American " States " free and independent. 

The cause of the revolt that brought about the loss to 
Britain of the North American colonies was a perfectly reason- 
able demand enforced in a very unreasonable manner. 

The colonists were asked to bear some of the expense of 
keeping up a large military and naval force in defence of 
their largely increased dominions, and, had they been in any 
sense united, they might well have seen the justice of this. 
But even the most tactful of governments would not have 
found it easy to enforce this necessary taxation upon a number 
of different groups of states in which the Puritan colonists 
1 Longfellow's Evangeline. 



172 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

of New England had neither the same ideals nor the same 
religion as the Southern States of Maryland and Virginia, 
nor even racial sympathy with the Dutch and German 
settlers in the middle group of New York, New Jersey, and 
Pennsylvania. 

There had, moreover, been growing up for a considerable 
time a large amount of self-government, and a leaning towards 
independence of a Mother Country that had done remarkably 
little to help in either their foundation or development. 
Had Britain at this crisis frankly acknowledged the growing 
independence of the colonies, and merely asked for aid in 
bearing a common load, all might have been well. But a 
stupid and short-sighted Government imposed an irritating 
tax upon the colonists without even a pretence of considering 
their position ; and immediately the latter retaliated by 
announcing that "taxation and representation must go 
together." 

This was in 1765, and the obnoxious tax was imposed only 
for a year and never paid. But two years later a system of 
coercion was introduced which was to browbeat the colonists 
into submission. In face of the inevitable war of revolt that 
followed, the thirteen colonies forgot their differences of 
origin, race, and faith, and joined together in a Declaration 
of Independence (1776) that made the " United States," 
and deprived Britain of all her most flourishing American 
colonies. Alone, the struggle against a rich and powerful 
motherland, with a large population, a strong navy, and a 
well-trained army, might have been hopeless. But when 
France, already in sympathy with the spirit of revolution, 
and still resentful of her losses in America, came in as their 
ally, the result was assured. 

Canada remained, however, in the hands of Britain, and 
during the War of American Independence a large number of 
" loyalists " left the States and settled in Lower Canada, 
in Ontario, and round about the mouth of the river St. Law- 
rence. The rest of the colony was still peopled by French 
settlers, and if Britain had chosen to impose her methods of 
government on all alike, as she had done in the States, a fresh 



THE ERA OF COLONIZATION 173 

revolt would have followed. But the Motherland had begun 
to learn wisdom. By the " Canada Act " of Pitt (1741) the 
colony was divided into Lower or French Canada and Upper 
or British Canada, both under British rule ; and to each was 
given a certain amount of self-government and its own legis- 
lative assembly. 

The Expansion of the United States (1800-1900)— Meantime 
the United States, having shaken off all fetters, began to 
expand freely. The region between the Mississippi and the 
Rockies, known as Louisiana, was bought from France in 
1803, and Florida from Spain in 1819. By the middle of the 
nineteenth century her borders touched the Pacific on the 
West, while by her purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867 
she became the owner of the richest gold mines in the world. 
Before the end of the same century she had founded her own 
colonial Empire in the Hawaiian Islands and the Philippines, 
in Samoa and the West Indies, and was strong enough to 
enunciate her " Monroe Doctrine," which forbade the Old 
World to lay hands further upon the New. " Henceforth/' 
declared President Monroe in 1823, " the American continents 
are not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by 
any European Power." 

It was the attempt of Napoleon III to ignore this by con- 
quering Mexico and by setting up the Austrian prince, Maxi- 
milian, brother of Francis Joseph I, as the Emperor, that led 
to the capture and murder of this scion of an ill-fated house 
by the Mexicans in 1867. 

Effect upon the Old World — Some of the general effects of 
the events of this chapter on the Story of the World may be 
noted here. 

The downfall of French and Spanish colonization in North 
America made the history of that continent much less inter- 
national, though its mixed races, together with its position 
between Asia on the one hand and Europe on the other, 
would always prevent its developing on purely local lines. The 
trend henceforth was in one instead of in many directions. 

Of more importance, perhaps, is the effect on the Old 
World of the Declaration of Independence. We have seen that 



174 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

this was caused by the conflict between different theories of 
government, and by a narrow and selfish colonial policy, a 
policy which was adopted even more thoroughly by France and 
Spain than by Britain. If this policy had been persisted in 
there is no doubt that the whole of the British Empire, as well 
as the colonies of other European powers, v/ould have risen in 
successful revolt. When it became discredited by the loss of 
the American States, a new and more generous principle was 
adopted, the result of which is seen to-day in the fact that 
Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, to which the privilege of 
self-government was granted during the nineteenth century, 
were the most loyal and ardent supporters of the Mother 
Country during the Great War. 

Australia (1640-1900) — ^To the period between the British 
conquest of Canada and the complete emancipation of the 
United States belong the voyages and explorations which 
brought the almost unknown continent of Australia fully into 
the course of World History. 

The Dutch were the first to explore the Western Coast, 
and in 1642 the Dutchman Tasman discovered Tasmania and 
New Zealand. But they went no farther, and it was left for 
Captain Cook, more than a century later, to explore the Pacific 
and its many islands, before he was murdered by the 
Hawaiian natives in 1779. 

The actual colonization of the new continent of Australia 
was carried out by British convicts, a band of whom was 
landed first in Sydney Cove in 1787. Never was a colony so 
hard to build up, for a short-sighted home government 
persisted in sending out batches of convict settlers without a 
single expert farmer to leaven the lump of ignorance and 
vice. The settlers were at once faced with famine, for the 
soil about the Cove would not grow corn. A number of the 
convicts were then shipped off to Norfolk Island, where they 
were only saved from the same fate by the hosts of sea-birds 
and their eggs, upon which for a time they lived. After a 
while farmers were established on the mainland, and, largely 
owing to the tact and humanity of Phillips, the first governor, 
his own prediction that " this country would prove the most 



THE ERA OF COLONIZATION 175 

valuable acquisition Great Britain ever made/* began to be 
fulfilled. By the year 1792 the young colony of New South 
Wales, in spite of many drawbacks and difficulties, was the 
nucleus of a rich and prosperous country, which in 1900 was 
to become the Australian Commonwealth. 

New Zealand — In 1839 New Zealand, the largest of the 
group of islands known as Oceania, was annexed by Britain ; 
and such was her importance, owing to her favoured climate 
and fertility, that in 1907 she, like Australia, became a self- 
governing Dominion. 

Africa — During the nineteenth century the New World of 
Africa, parts of which had known a civilization compared to 
which that of Europe is but as yesterday, came within the 
knowledge of an Old World that had forgotten her ancient 
glory. Yet even in the early days of her story, little more 
than the shore of the Mediterranean had ever been known. 
Egypt, Carthage, the Arab domain of North Africa as far as 
Morocco, and the Straits of Gibraltar belonged to history, and 
the Portuguese explorers of the sixteenth century had told 
marvellous stories of the long coast-line to the Southern Seas. 
But yet Africa, fortressed by her high mountain ranges and 
dangerous rivers, her vast deserts and thick forests, remained 
the " Dark Continent " right down to the days of the nine- 
teenth century. 

Then began a rush of exploration. Sir Samuel Baker and 
Captain Speke followed Mungo Park, who was killed by 
natives in 1806, in his search for the source of the Nile ; and 
David Livingstone, about the middle of the nineteenth century, 
making his way up the Zambesi, crossed the continent from 
South to North. In his search for the latter in 1871, Stanley 
discovered the source of the Congo and explored its course ; 
and in his subsequent writings threw a flood of light upon the 
Dark Continent as far as Europeans were concerned. 

The Partition of Africa — One of the results of Stanley's 
exploration was the formation of the Congo Free State, estab- 
lished by Leopold II, King of the Belgians, for the sake of the 
rich rubber plantations worked by the negroes. But mean- 
time other European States were also out for plunder from the 



176 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

natives of Africa. Germany quickly acquired by treaty and 
annexation a large part of South- West Africa, East Africa, and 
the Cameroons. Italy annexed part of Somaliland, and took 
Libya from Turkey in 1912. France took Algeria from the 
Arabs, annexed Tunis, and established a protectorate over 
Morocco. Portugal obtained Portuguese East Africa. 

But the richest part of the continent, stretching from the 
Cape to Lake Tanganyika, fell into the hands of Great Britain. 
Cape Colony became hers in 1816 after the Napoleonic Wars ; 
twenty years later the Dutch settlers, known as Boers, trekked 
North to found the republics of Natal, the Transvaal, and the 
Orange Free State. Natal was the scene of fierce and bloody 
conflicts between Boers and Zulus before it was annexed 
over the heads of both by Britain. The other two states 
remained independent until the discovery of the gold mines 
of the Transvaal. This led to the immigration of numbers 
of British-born men, who, as settlers, demanded a share in 
the government. This the Boers, under the leadership of 
Kruger, refused, and the Boer War (1899-1902) was the result. 

When once Great Britain had become the conqueror of 
the Boers, she showed that she had profited by her lesson 
of over a century before. She granted self-government to 
Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Natal, and the Transvaal, 
and these States have now been joined in the Union of South 
Africa. The Union possesses a parliament and a ministry 
acting under the Governor-General appointed by the Mother 
Country ; and thus the rights of Boer and Englishman are 
alike safeguarded. Beyond these States lies the dominion 
called Rhodesia after the Prime Minister of Cape Colony, 
Cecil Rhodes, an English gentleman who was among the 
first to discover the diamond fields of Kimberley, and to 
make Bechuanaland a British protectorate. To the north 
again lie the fertile colony of British East Africa and 
the Protectorate of Uganda ; and, farther north still, the 
Sudan and Egypt, both now to be reckoned among British 
possessions. 

The full story of the partition of Africa must be read 
elsewhere. Enough has been said to illustrate the remarkable 



THE ERA OF COLONIZATION 177 

expansion of Europe during the second half of the nineteenth 
century. The necessity had been felt for new outlets for 
European energy after the upheaval of the Franco-Prussian 
War and the settlements made by the Treaty of Berlin. 
There was pressing need also for new openings for commercial 
and industrial enterprise ; and so the eyes of Europe turned 
to that part of the world whose riches were in those times as 
fabulous as those of India to the men of mediaeval days. 

Oceania— While the Old World " scrambled for Africa/* 
the distant islands of Oceania were fast being appropriated by 
Germany, Britain, and the United States. And since appro- 
priation had thus become the fashion, Russia, Germany, and 
Britain began to lay hands upon the ancient Empire of China, 
peacefully asleep, as it seemed, behind its mountain barriers, 
and to seize respectively Port Arthur, Kiao-chau, and 
Wei-hai-wei. Then of a sudden the dreaming Empire moved 
in her sleep ; the Boxer rising showed the foreigners the 
need of caution ; the neighbour kingdom of Japan, which had 
rapidly developed a highly efficient naval and military force, 
dashed to the rescue and prevented the wholesale spoliation 
of the Eastern World by the West. 



EXERCISES 

1. Compare and explain the colonial policy of Britain in the 
eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries respectively. 

2. Write a critical explanation of the " Scramble for Africa." 

3. What has been the general effect on World History of the 
Declaration of American Independence ? 



12 



CHAPTER XVI 

"GREAT POWERS " AND "BENEVOLENT DESPOTS" 

(a.d. 1650-1800) 

IN this chapter we shall briefly trace the methods by 
which certain European States, during the seventeenth 
and eighteenth centuries, became " Great Powers." 

In one respect these methods are alike, for they are 
all based upon what we call " economic development." 

Effect of Great Changes in Europe — About the middle of 
the seventeenth century — the Peace of Westphalia (1650) 
may be taken as a convenient milestone — the effect of the 
great changes that Europe had seen in the past hundred 
years began to be felt in the economic world. 

Let us briefly recall what these changes were. 

There was, to begin with, the break-up of Christendom 
after the Reformation, when the central idea of Europe be- 
came no longer a European Commonwealth, but individual, 
independent States free from any outside authority. 

This led to the development of the " monarch " and the 
" State," an idea expressed best by Louis XIV of France 
in his terse remark, " L'Etat, c'est Moi." Elsewhere it 
fostered the spirit of individualism that made an Independent 
State, such as Holland. 

With this is closely connected the new " Mercantile 
System," which simply meant that all members of a State 
were bound to work for the welfare of that State, and for 
the support of the standing army and navy upon which that 
welfare was now made to depend. 

Then, in place of the old municipal community, we get a 

" central system," organized by a government whose aim 

was to increase the productive power of the nation in order 

178 



" GREAT POWERS " 179 

that the resulting wealth might provide a field for heavy 
taxation. 

For this reason the great trading European companies 
could generally depend upon some degree of support from the 
State ; and colonial enterprise was encouraged by the most 
far-sighted governments for the same reason. 

So it came about that, since national power now depended 
on national enterprise, it was the State whose income was the 
largest and on the soundest foundation that became a " Great 
Power." For on the productive power of the people de- 
pended the size and strength of the army ; and the army, in 
days when countries were forcibly carved out of the dis- 
organization of Europe, became the short cut to power. 

** War became a business in which the man who invested 
the largest amount of capital was the most likely to succeed." 
The result of such a policy, ignoring, as it does, the utterly 
wasteful and unproductive effect of war, can be seen in the 
century of revolt that followed. 

The Development o£ France (1650-1713)— The foundations 
of the greatness of France had been laid, as we saw, by 
Henry IV. They were strengthened in the direction we 
have been describing, by Richelieu, the Cardinal Minister 
of State, who prepared the ground for the despotism of Louis 
XIV. The aim of the latter was frankly " to make all forces 
of the State subservient to himself, and to turn them to the 
advantage of the State at his own will." 

Industry in France was encouraged by the royal power, 
and then taxed to provide military material, and with this 
Louis carried on a succession of wars by which he hoped to 
win an Empire at least as great as that of Charlemagne. 

Thus " economic progress became the foundation of 
military power," and the country v^^as rapidly developed for 
this end both as to industry and agriculture. New manu- 
factures, new inventions were encouraged. Foreign com- 
petition was excluded wherever possible. Heavy taxes were 
levied as prosperity increased. 

It is true that a great body of the most industrious part of 
the population, the Huguenots, were driven out by religious 



180 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

intolerance, and left France to help to found the prosperity 
of other European States ; but, in spite of that, France seemed 
to prosper exceedingly. Traces of feudalism were to be 
found here and there, but the tendency of this State en- 
couragement was to destroy the despotism of the nobles and 
to increase the number of free peasant proprietors and 
industrial workers. 

Yet underneath, the foundations of the kingdom of the 
" Benevolent Despot," Louis XIV, were fast rotting away ; 
for her apparent success was based, not on a great national 
movement, but on a system of absolutism that made men 
serfs in fact if not in name. Long before the death of 
Louis XV its failure was apparent ; and though other and 
more immediate causes brought about the Revolution, 
we must look for its roots in these years of outward 
success. 

Power of Holland (1660-1713)— During this period the 
small and new-made State of Holland had been pushing her 
way to the front in a very different spirit, though by precisely 
the same method. Her success was won by the sheer de- 
termination of the whole nation to overcome the natural 
drawbacks of her position. She commanded, it is true, the 
mouth of one of the greatest waterways in Europe, but she 
had also to conquer and make alliance with the sea which 
periodically overflowed her territory. 

When the ocean had been tamed by the mechanical device 
of dunes and dykes Holland determined to push to the utter- 
most the mercantile advantages of her long coast-line. For 
a century Holland dominated Europe by keeping the carrying 
trade of the world in her hands ; her ships raced to and fro 
along the great trade routes to East and West. Her com- 
merce and business capacity were so well developed that the 
Dutch became the most wealthy merchants and " capitalists " 
in Europe. Her fleet defied that of Britain ; her army under 
William HI of England, the " Stadt holder " of Holland, 
held up Louis in his attempt to form a continental Empire. 
Though never a "Great Power" herself, the little country, 
by keeping up a barrier between France and the rest of the 



" GREAT POWERS " 181 

continent, maintained the " Balance of Power " and became 
for a time the saviour of Europe. 

Peace of Utrecht (1713)— The Peace of Utrecht, which 
ended a war into which most of the European countries had 
been drawn, gave to Austria the Spanish Netherlands, now 
known as Belgium, while France gained little but the border 
provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. 

Among the minor terms of this treaty was an insignificant 
clause permitting the ** Elector of Brandenburg " to take the 
title of " King of Prussia." From that moment dates the 
appearance of a new power in Europe. 

Five centuries before this time— early, that is, in the 
thirteenth century— an offshoot of the Crusading army, known 
as the Teutonic knights, had settled in a wooded and well- 
watered strip of land lying along the Baltic coast, and in course 
of years had made this district, now called Prussia, rich and 
prosperous. Gradually, however, the Poles, their neighbours, 
encroached upon their territory, and the Teutonic knights 
were merged into the subjects of the princes of the House of 
Brandenburg, the nearest province. The ruler of that day 
made Prussia into a dukedom, and united the two provinces. 

These Brandenburg rulers were of the Hohenzollern race, 
whose boast was that each of them died possessed of wider 
realms than those owned by his ancestors. Pomerania and 
the lands along the Lower Rhine had been added to Branden- 
burg and Prussia before the death of the Prussian " Elector," 
Frederick William ; and in 1713, as we have seen, the son of 
the Elector, Frederick, took the title of King of Prussia. In 
the days of this king's grandson, another Frederick William 
the principle of an absolute State, which we have seen in 
France, was carried out to its fullest extent in Prussia. All 
kinds of representative councils were suppressed in favour of a 
" central assembly " of ministers, dominated by the monarch. 
A standing army ensured support for all his measures, and this 
was developed by a system of compulsory military service, 
and by the selection of picked men for his most famous regi- 
ments ; until, almost unawares, Europe was confronted with a 
perfect military machine such as no other country could rival. 



182 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

Economic Policy of Frederick the Great (1740-1786)— 

The success of his son, Frederick II, the " Robber of Europe," 
in war concerns us less than the means by which he built up a 
powerful State upon the foundations thus laid. 

It was no mere desire for " land-grabbing," but the 
knowledge of the linen industry of Silesia, that made the 
latter Frederick's " Peru." When a long series of wars, which 
meantime devastated Europe, had finally gained him the 
province which rightly belonged to Marie Therese of Austria, 
Frederick had leisure to carry out a thoroughgoing policy of 
reform throughout the now largely increased territory of 
Prussia. He had always the deepest admiration for French 
methods, and he knew that Silesia would have been torn 
from his grasp had it not been for British gold ; hence his 
first aim must be to increase the industrial and agricultural 
wealth of a country, much of which was depopulated and 
unfertile. 

So he rebuilt villages and farms that had been devastated 
by war ; he encouraged the " peasant proprietor " or small 
farmer ; he reclaimed and drained the great tracts of waste 
lands, and peopled Brandenburg and Silesia, Pomerania 
and Magdeburg, with colonists from Prussia proper. But he 
took little heed of the fact that these people, who were subject 
to forced labour and heavy feudal burdens in order to supply 
money for his wars, were practically serfs. 

In many rural districts the old feudal wrongs survived. 
There was little industry, and field labourers could be flogged 
at the will of their master. Yet in many respects the policy 
of Frederick, selfish as it was, did much to improve these 
conditions. Trade was encouraged by grants of money, and 
every weaver in Silesia was given a loom as a free gift. " Let 
it be known," the king proclaimed, " that, if any economic 
enterprise is beyond the power of my subjects, it is my affair 
to defray the costs." 

The result was an example of " paternal Government " 
carried to an extreme that left no department of life free from 
the royal interference. Free corn was doled out in famine 
years, and the price of corn kept down that the people might 



"GREAT POWERS" 183 

not starve ; but " the king was the chief corn merchant in the 
land." The iron industry, the wool trade, were bound strictly 
by royal regulations. A maidservant, by royal orders, was 
not allowed to light her fires with rags. Salt, coffee, and 
tobacco were monopolies of the Crown. 

His people, under such iron discipline, showed small 
gratitude and less initiative. " They move if you urge them 
on, and stop as soon as you leave off driving them," com- 
plained the king. " Nobody approves of habits and customs 
except those of his fathers. ... As for me, who never did 
them anything but good, they think I want to put a knife to 
their throats as soon as there is any question of introducing 
a useful innovation or of making any change at all." 

Yet there is no doubt that it was his domestic rule, 
rather than his immoral foreign policy, that won for Frederick 
the title of the "Great." 

Reforms of Joseph II in Austria (1760-1790)— All over 
Europe in these latter days of the eighteenth century we find 
the same wave of reform, as though, indeed, the Western 
World had awakened to the fact that by the construction of 
industry rather than the destruction caused by war must 
the position of a Great Power be won and held. But 
still the idea of reform imposed from above rather than 
demanded from below held good. The State must be the 
sole agent of improvement. 

The constructive work of Joseph II, who succeeded to 
the Austrian dominion of Marie Th6rese after her death in 
1780, was on the most enlightened lines of his day. Taxation 
was fair and equally distributed ; justice was dealt out im- 
partially to rich and poor ; education was encouraged ; 
freedom in religion was tolerated ; the death penalty was no 
longer inflicted for minor offences. 

At his accession the peasants of some provinces were almost 
entirely in a state of serfdom. They were not free to leave 
their masters' estates, or to marry whom they pleased, or to 
take up any calling but that of manual labour. The first great 
step towards the real rise of Austria was taken when Joseph 
abolished serfdom in the Slav provinces, and secured the 



184 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

Bohemian peasant the right of owning land, of moving from 
place to place, and of marrying without the permission of his 
employer. 

Rise of Russia (1700-1800) — ^A similar wave of reform 
began, in the eighteenth century, to affect a country that had 
lagged far behind the rest of Europe. Cut off by lack of 
seaports from the rest of Europe, as well as by religion and by 
her Eastern origin, Russia, after three centuries of Mongol 
rule had come to an end, was behind the Western World in 
education, industry, and civilization. She had never been 
conquered by the Romans, and therefore owed nothing to 
the Roman Empire in the way of law and organization. Her 
people were either ignorant serfs, tilling the ground in scattered 
villages and by antiquated methods, or they wandered south 
to the borderland washed by the Dnieper, known as the 
Ukraine, under the leadership of the Cossacks. These Cossacks 
were warrior tribes, Slav in dialect, living a wild, free life as 
hunters or herdsmen and holding their land on the old 
principle of "feudal tenure,** in return for military service. 
Others of the population migrated into the region known as 
Siberia, and extended the borders of Russia to the Arctic and 
Pacific Oceans. But not until the days of the Czar Michael 
Romanov did this vast unwieldy country know a ruler who 
understood the true principles of economic progress ; and not 
until the days of his grandson, Peter the Great (1689-1725), 
were these principles adopted to any extent. 

The aims of Peter were first to introduce Western civiliza- 
tion into Russia, and secondly to make himself the most 
absolute of monarchs. The calendar, which began the year 
in September, was brought up to date ; women were allowed 
to appear in public ; European or, rather, German dress took 
the place of the long, sweeping Asiatic robe. Roads and 
canals were made, mines dug, the manufacture of silk and 
wool encouraged. To support his absolutism, a regular 
army and navy were organized, the former on the German, 
the latter on the English, pattern. The European legal system 
was adapted to Russian ideas. When the clergy of the 
Greek Church in Russia objected to some of these reforms, 



" GREAT POWERS " 185 

the Czar's answer was to place the Church under the complete 
control of the State, When the nobles opposed his plans, 
he made the title of nobility depend, not upon birth, but upon 
the share taken by them in his personal government. 

That these extraordinary changes, suddenly imposed 
upon a nation deeply tinged with Asiatic conservatism and 
inertia, did not result in overwhelming confusion, is partly 
a tribute to the genius of Peter, and partly due to the fact 
that, owing to the vast size of his Empire, they really only 
penetrated a very small part of it. The Russian peasant 
remained a serf, with neither political nor economic rights. 
The noble cared as little as he had ever done for the progress 
and welfare of his country. But the indefatigable Czar 
meant to build, as a symbol of western culture, his grand 
new city of Petrograd. After that he would force his nobles 
also to build fine houses and his merchants to carry on their 
trades. But first, having, superficially at any rate, remade 
Russia, he meant to drive back the Swedes, make the Baltic 
his western frontier, and build his " window " into Europe. 

Sweden (1700-1800)— In those days the Baltic Sea was 
in the hands of Sweden, which in the seventeenth century 
had developed into a Great Power. By the successful 
enterprise of Gustavus Adolphus during the Thirty Years 
War, she held not only her ancient fiefs of Finland and 
Esthonia, but other small Baltic provinces, including 
Western Pomerania. The mouths of the Baltic rivers from 
the Neva to the Weser were under her control, and almost 
the whole of the Baltic coast was in her hands. 

In striking contrast to the neighbouring country of Norway, 
the greatness of Sweden has always depended upon the 
character of her kings ; and this is clearly seen in the days 
when she was ruled by Charles XII (1697-1718). 

Against this lad of fifteen, Denmark, Poland, and Russia 
united to rob him of his possessions. Within twelve years 
the first two of these lay prostrate at his feet, while the third 
had felt the weight of his arm. Intoxicated by success, the 
young king, now a man of twenty-seven, determined to 
march on Moscow and humble Czar Peter to the dust. But 



186 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

this was just the opportunity for which the latter had waited. 
Charles was utterly defeated at the Battle of Poltava in 1709, 
and Sweden lost all her possessions save part of Finland. 
The rest of Finland, together with the Baltic provinces on 
the eastern shores, went to Russia ; and there Peter built 
the city of his dreams. The province of Western Pomerania, 
with its rich trading advantages, went to Prussia. 

During the half - century that followed the death of 
Peter the Great, Russia, through the accession of the German 
princess Catherine, came into close touch with Germany 
and into open conflict with the Ottoman Empire, which 
touched her south-west borders. Poland and Turkey were 
in those days the only obstacles that prevented Russia from 
holding the sea power of the South as she now held it in the 
North. 

Poland — The huge plain of Poland, stretching from the 
Baltic to the Black Sea, was the home of a Slav people, who 
had only come into touch with the Western World when they 
fell in the tenth century under the civilizing influence of the 
Catholic Church. Four hundred years later we find them 
united with the Lithuanians, making Warsaw their common 
capital ; but there was little real unity of any sort to be 
found among their mixed population of Poles, Lithuanians, 
Germans, Swedes, and Russians. The peasants were serfs of 
the most degraded type, ruled by feudal lords, amongst 
whom the land was divided. All power was in the hands of 
the latter ; the king was merely their instrument. 

It is no wonder, therefore, that a country lacking the 
very elements of economic strength fell an easy prey into 
the grasp of those who coveted her position in Europe. 
Three times between 1772 and 1795 Poland was, not con- 
quered, but partitioned out between Russia, Austria, and 
Prussia ; and by the end of the century, in spite of the 
heroic resistance of Kosciusko, the Polish patriot, the little 
kingdom had ceased to exist save as a thorn in the flesh 
of the Europe that had looked on at her death. Never 
content under foreign rule, always restlessly hankering after 
national life, Poland yet had no chance of regaining her 



" GREAT POWERS " 187 

independence till the cataclysm of the Great War (1914-1918) 
broke her bonds and set her free. 

The Ottoman Empire — From the Ottoman Empire 
Russia was also to make profit. At the end of the seven- 
teenth century the Ottoman Empire had steadily encroached 
upon Europe until it included the whole of what is now 
known as Roumania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Albania, and Greece, 
as well as the Crimea and a large part of Hungary. In Asia 
and Africa the Turks ruled not only Egypt, but Syria, 
Armenia, Mesopotamia, and North Africa. Vienna itself 
would have been theirs in 1683 had they not been checked 
by the Polish king, John Sobieski, whose action helped to 
free all Hungary from Turkish rule. But Russia, in the 
days of Catherine the Great, proved Turkey's most powerful 
opponent. She took from the Turks the Crimea, and gained 
access to the Mediterranean through the Bosphorus and 
Dardanelles. And by the constant interference of Russia 
with Turkish affairs there was fostered that sense of hostility 
to the presence of the Turk in Europe, and that desire to 
drive him back to his original Asiatic home, which had been 
so strongly felt in mediaeval days. 

Policy of Catherine the Great (1762-1796) — The great 
unwieldy Empire ruled over by Catherine II during the 
second half of the century gained little by these outside 
excursions and alarms. It did, however, profit to some 
degree by the veneer of European civilization imposed upon 
it by a Czarina who was of German birth and education. 
In her frequent journeys from end to end of her vast king- 
dom, she saw both the need and the difficulty of reform in 
a country peopled by almost uncivilized serfs living under 
mediaeval feudal conditions. While keeping up the idea of 
** centralization," so dear to the eighteenth-century ruler, 
she realized the need of granting great freedom in the 
administration of the widely separated provinces. But 
though she herself was all in favour of abolishing serfdom 
in days when peasants were openly advertised for sale, 
nothing was actually done to emancipate these " goods and 
'^chattels " of the nobility. 



188 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

She also favoured a system of parliament to which a 
kind of representative was elected by the provinces ; but 
the utmost she could do in this respect was to get established 
a clear legal code in place of the muddled laws of former 
years. 

In the same way, free trade and manufactures were part 
of her ideal, and to this end she encouraged private factories 
and abolished monopolies, improved the waterways, and 
built the valuable port of Odessa on the Black Sea. But, 
though she made Petrograd a *' seat of enlightened despotism,'* 
the effect of her reign upon Russia was very small. Out- 
wardly, perhaps, the nobles adopted a European civilization. 
The mass of the people remained almost untouched by the 
policy of a queen whose theories were in advance of her 
practical administration. 



EXERCISES 

1. Show what general principles underlay the rise of any 
European country to the position of a Great Power. 

2. Sketch the Rise of Prussia. 

3. What changes in Economic Conditions laid the foundations 
for the rise of Great Powers in Europe ? 



CHAPTER XVII 

REVOLUTION— INDUSTRIAL AND POLITICAL 

(1780-1815) 

IF we glance back at the history of the eighteenth 
century, some of the main features of which we have 
been studying in the last chapter, we shall see that, in 
spite of the widespread spirit of despotism, the unreason- 
able amount of power in the hands of the nobles, and the 
lack of any opportunity for making heard the voice of the 
" people," it still may be regarded as the period in which 
these things were fast passing away in favour of modern 
conditions. 

Just to take a few examples — we find in it the birth of 
the new " nation " of the United States upon free and demo- 
cratic lines. We have seen Prussia rebuilding her national 
existence on a firm internal organization, enlarging her 
territory, encouraging those who were to make this period 
the " greatest era of German thought." Not yet, however, 
was Prussia to make herself heard in the new Europe ; for 
her development was still hindered by the effects of the 
Thirty Years War, and her old-fashioned political machinery 
and small opportunity for industrial development blocked 
the way to rapid expansion. 

It is to Great Britain and to France that we look for the 
most evident features of change during this period, since 
they were " the two first countries in Europe to attain their 
nationhood" — the first to respond to the "national ideal" 
of the sixteenth century. 

Industrial Revolution in Britain (1780-1800) — During 
the eighteenth century we find in Great Britain the be- 
ginnings of free speech among members of Parhament, the 

189 



190 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

expansion of her Empire overseas, and, more important still, 
the spread of the scientific ideas of the seventeenth century, 
such as those of Newton, which were to alter the face of 
Europe. 

So, during the years when we shall find France in the 
throes of the terrible revolt by which she was to win her 
freedom, we see Britain in the midst of a peaceful revolution 
of industry, the practical result of the new scientific thought. 
Within a very few years this revolution made her the richest 
and most successful commercial nation of Europe. 

This Industrial Revolution, the practical work of which 
was inaugurated by the Younger Pitt, took the form of 
removing all the ancient restrictions on industry, and of 
transforming a country mainly agricultural into a great manu- 
facturing community. In former years the wool trade had 
been England's mainstay ; and the introduction of the 
rival cotton industry early in the century had been looked 
upon with such suspicion that Parliament had ordered people 
to be buried in woollen shrouds, and forbade the wearing 
of print dresses. But with Pitt's ministry the economic 
doctrines of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations began to be 
accepted, and men saw that the only way to increase the 
national welfare was to give each industry a free hand. 

So cotton and linen trades were allowed to flourish, and 
did so beyond all expectation, owing to the many mechanical 
inventions which developed a limited hand manufacture 
into great commercial industries. The invention of spinning 
machines worked first by hand, then by water, and later by 
steam, revolutionized the face of the country. 

The population flocked from village and countryside into 
the great trade centres now rapidly rising near the lately 
discovered coal-fields of the north and midlands. The 
speedy progress of industry after Watt had found the means 
of utilizing coal in the form of steam was seen in the extra- 
ordinarily rapid growth of such towns as Liverpool, Birming- 
ham, and Manchester. 

And with all this hurried success came the inevitable 
drawbacks. Two new classes of society appeared — the rich 



REVOLUTION— INDUSTRIAL & POLITICAL 191 

manufacturers, the capitalists, who drew their wealth from 
the blood and muscle of the workers ; and the artisans them- 
selves, badly housed in hastily built hovels, overworked, 
uneducated, little better than slaves. 

Thus, out of a peaceful Industrial Revolution, which 
proclaimed an immense increase of trade and prosperity, and 
the triumph of the capitalist, was to grow that movement 
towards democratic government which advanced so steadily 
in the next century. For it was impossible that the ruling 
power should remain in the hands of a few men of aristo- 
cratic birth when the wealth and prosperity of the land 
depended entirely upon the wealthy middle-class merchant 
and the industrial worker. 

Again, although the industrial reforms seemed at first 
merely to degrade the working man and to treat him as part 
of the newly invented machinery, the development of 
scientific thought, the wider outlook, the very fact that it 
was a revolution against old-fasliioned ideas, led in the end 
to a great era of Reform. 

The abolition of slavery, the sweeping changes in 
prison life brought about by John Howard and Mrs. Fry, 
the beginnings of educational schemes, all led up to the 
Reform Bill of 1832, which was the first step in giving the 
" people " the chance of making their voice heard in the 
government of their own land. 

The French Revolution — This era of Reform might have 
come about earlier had it not been for the way in which 
Britain was involved in the result of the Revolution in France. 
The spirit of freedom in action which had prevented any- 
thing like a violent revolution in our own country did not 
exist in our neighbour across the Channel. Outwardly, 
indeed, the long-drawn-out despotism of the ancien regime 
had brought about a " splendour of form," a wealthy nation, 
a method of thought, and a literature that had made France 
famous throughout Europe. But, in spite of the fact that 
feudalism, in face of the new doctrines of such men as 
Voltaire and Rousseau, was tottering, the nobles could 
still claim freedom from a taxation that was crushing the 



192 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

dumb peasantry ; and the administration of the country was 
still paralysed by the custom that insisted that even trivial 
matters of local business must be transacted in the royal 
courts, at great expense of time and money. 

The general cause of the Revolution was, no doubt, 
to some extent, the new spirit introduced by the revolt of 
the American Colonies, as well as by the bitter attack upon 
the system of Absolutism made by Rousseau in his Contrat 
Social. 

But these things appealed only to the educated middle 
class, the bourgeoisie, the lawyers, doctors, merchants, 
bankers, on whom had fallen the burden of providing 
money for the State and for the needs of an extravagant 
monarch. It was the ill-fortune of Louis XVI that he, 
the only Bourbon who did his best to stem the current of 
Court extravagance, should have to pay the penalty due to 
the sins of his ancestors. The reforms of his minister, 
Turgot, came too late ; and the dismissal of the latter sealed 
the fate of the old regime in Europe, which Louis himself was 
honestly anxious to sweep away. 

The recent light thrown on this period shows very clearly 
that the Revolution was not the outbreak of a maddened 
multitude despairing of redress ; and that the " people " 
were rather the victims than the prime movers of revolt. 
It was the work of an underground conspiracy, made up of 
sections whose aims differed, but whose one desire was to 
overcome the monarchy. 

Of these the Orleanist faction had as its leader the in- 
famous Philippe Agalite, a distant cousin of the King, who had 
his own axe to grind and cared not how many innocent heads 
fell under its edge. Anarchists of the lodges of " freemasons " 
springing up in France and Germany were working to destroy 
all existing law and order. The animosity of Frederick 
the Great against the Austrian princess, Marie Antoinette, 
was by no means inoperative. From across the Channel 
came promises of support, not from the statesman Pitt, but 
from the Prince of Wales and certain English revolutionists, 
whose hands, within their own country, were tied. 



REVOLUTION— INDUSTRIAL & POLITICAL 193 

Taken all together, these things account for the fact that 
what might have been a legitimate movement of reform, 
which aimed at a constitutional monarchy with control in the 
hands of the wealthy and taxpaying middle class, became a 
Red Terror, which swept away not only king, queen, and 
nobles, but also the bourgeoisie who had first set the movement 
on foot. 

In theory, the French Revolution was to bring about a 
New Birth of Humanity throughout Europe by means of its 
three great watchwords, " Liberty, Equality, Fraternity " ; 
and the most terrible feature of the movement was the misuse 
of these principles. For " Liberty " soon came to mean the 
right to ignore all obligations and to abolish all authority ; 
" Equality " impHed the right of destroying a superior ; and 
" Fraternity " the most bitter and bloodstained struggle be- 
tween man and man that the world has known. Yet, in spite 
of this, the actual rightness of these principles persisted and in 
course of years had its true effect. For to the Modern World 
was to come the Liberty which permits the development of the 
individual to his fullest capacity ; the Equality which gives 
equal opportunities to all ; the Fraternity upon which all 
society really depends. In France herself we find an awaken- 
ing of the people, the beginnings of education, a code of law, 
and a marked increase of small peasant proprietors after the 
redistribution of the land of murdered " aristocrats." But 
these good things, which would have come about without 
the violent reaction of that age, were hindered for many years 
by the course taken by the Revolution after 1792. The 
anarchist horrors, the reign of blood, the horrible excesses of 
mob rule in France had swiftly changed the sympathy of 
Europe to disgust and hate. The voice of democracy, it is 
true, was never again to be stilled, but it had little influence for 
good on the world during the thirty years of war and misery 
that followed the Revolution. 

The Wars oS the Revolution — ^The main effect of the long 

war that followed was to revive a strong national spirit in all 

the countries of Europe. In this France herself led the way, 

under the leadership of the greatest military genius the world 

13 



194 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

has known, in her pride in her own successes in the battle-fields 
of the Continent, and in the superiority she claimed over both 
allies and foes. And, on the other hand, this very aloofness 
of France, combined with the ambitious aims of Napoleon 
Buonaparte, had the effect of rousing in opposition a perfect 
passion of national patriotism, which was fanned to white 
heat by the new-made Emperor's determination to make 
Europe a part of his World Empire. 

Marat, one of the chief Revolutionary leaders, had once 
said that before a France, torn with anarchy and ruled by 
hordes of undisciplined brigands, could return to forgotten 
paths of commerce and industry, it was necessary to rid the 
country of a large part of her unruly population by a war. 
In this phase of the conflict, after 1792, all the States of 
Europe took part, some, such as Prussia and Austria, to defend 
the principle of absolute monarchy ; others, like Britain and 
Holland, because the conquest of Belgium had opened the 
gate of Europe to the Rhine and to the North Sea ; and Spain, 
because her ruler was a Bourbon who feared a similar revolu- 
tion in his own realm. 

It was a war of six States against one, but the balance of 
power was not so uneven as it seemed, since the newly roused 
nation, with all her energies absorbed in a war for her existence, 
was no bad match for a ring of half-hearted and unpopular 
governments. This first phase lasted from 1792 to 1802 ; and 
before its fourth year was ended, France had annexed large 
portions of Germany, Savoy, and the Netherlands, while Hol- 
land was made a Republic under French protection. She had 
also driven the Austrians from Lombardy and the Pope from the 
Papal States of the North. One after another the European 
States were forced to fall out and make peace. Only Britain 
and her sea power remained, firm on the foundation of her 
commercial wealth and able alone to frustrate Napoleon's 
schemes. 

And now, with the eye of a World Conqueror, Buonaparte 
had looked beyond the confines of the West, and was aiming at 
the conquest of the Eastern World, which all these years had 
been making its own slow but steady progress. To control 



REVOLUTION—INDUSTRIAL & POLITICAL 195 

Egypt, to cut off Britain from the East, and to destroy her 
Empire in India was his plan ; and on the way to this he meant 
to conquer the Ottoman Empire, drive the Turk from Europe, 
and estabHsh French rule over all the central portion of the 
Continent. 

But English sea power under Nelson at Aboukir Bay 
brought him to a standstill in the East, while the common 
danger in that region roused Russia, Austria, and Turkey 
against him in a coalition which sent him hurrying back to 
Paris. 

Yet again, within a year we find Russia out of the conflict 
and prepared to turn her armies against Great Britain ; and 
Austria broken and brought to her knees after the defeats of 
Marengo and Hohenlinden. In 1802 the Peace of Amiens 
left the Netherlands, the Rhinelands, and most of Italy under 
French rule. 

The Empire ol Napoleon (1802-1813) — ^The peace was but a 
truce. The war broke out again with redoubled force next 
year ; and now, in his open claim for World Empire, the chief 
aim of the Emperor Napoleon was the invasion of Britain. 
Only the mastery of the seas was necessary to make him Lord 
of the World ; and Britain alone stood in his path. Austria, 
it is true, had to be reckoned with ; but, while Nelson's victory 
at Trafalgar destroyed for ever his hope for sea-mastery, 
Austria was seen to collapse hopelessly after the battle of 
Austerlitz, which left Napoleon master of the Continent. 

Then he proceeded to remodel Europe. The Holy Roman 
Empire vanished, when all the German States except Prussia 
and Austria became a Confederation of the Rhine under French 
rule ; the Polish provinces annexed by Prussia were made the 
Grand duchy of Warsaw ; Napoleon's brother Louis was made 
king of Holland ; the Papal States were shared among his 
marshals ; and his brother Joseph was first made king of 
Naples and then king of a conquered Spain and Portugal. 

The real motive underlying all this was the hope that 
Britain could be blockaded, and her commerce excluded from 
a Europe in the hands of the Emperor. But the " continental 
system " cut both ways ; and nothing more was wanted to 



196 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

rouse in all the conquered States a flame of revolt against the 
despotic rule and exactions of Napoleon. This revolt ended in 
his downfall at Waterloo. 

Effect on Europe of the Napoleonic Wars — The gift of 
Buonaparte to France was one of reform, efficiency, and 
success, which lasted for many years. But these reforms 
were built upon a foundation of militarism with its handmaids 
of plunder, bloodshed, and subjection ; and when he himself 
vanished into the mists of St. Helena, the nation was left 
humiliated and downcast, ruled by an unpopular king and 
faced by a possible return to some of the worst features of the 
old state of things. The effect upon Europe as a whole was 
remarkable. In Germany and Italy the Napoleonic conflict 
did much to prepare the way for union and reconstruction by 
sweeping away the remnants of the feudal nobility ; but the 
chief effect there, as elsewhere, was to rouse a spirit of 
patriotism — a thirst for the fulfilment of the national ideal 
that, while apparently still further destroying the old spirit of 
internationalism, was all tending towards the idea of Unity. 

For nearly a century there was to be a slow but steadfast 
movement towards " a federated continent peacefully admini- 
stered under recognized international laws," an arrangement 
perfectly compatible with a zeal for nationality. It was one 
of the worst features of the Great War of the twentieth century 
that it destroyed this most important principle. 

We see this idea of federation beginning to operate at the 
Congress of Vienna, at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, when 
four Great Powers — Britain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia — 
formed a quadruple aUiance. We see it again in the Con- 
gress, where six reigning monarchs were present besides the 
representatives of the four Great Powers. And again, 
when Talleyrand, Castlereagh, Metternich, and Hardenberg 
could meet together as representatives of European policy to 
define the borders of France, to provide a new form of 
government for Germany, and to decide the fate of Poland, 
Saxony, Finland, and Italy. The " Commonwealth of Europe " 
in those days was no mere fancy title. 

Congress of Vienna (1815) — Unfortunately, the Congress 



REVOLUTION— INDUSTRIAL & POLITICAL 197 

was really dominated by a selfish and reactionary spirit, and 
its decisions, though they laid the foundation of the States 
of Modem Europe, were in almost every case reversed during 
the century that followed. Belgium was joined to Holland 
under the government of the Prince of Orange, merely to 
form a stronger barrier against Northern France. Prussia 
was strengthened by the acquisition of the Rhine Provinces, 
regardless of differences of race and creed. The repubUcs 
of Nice and Genoa were forced, much against their will, to 
join Savoy and Piedmont under the King of Sardinia. 

The thirty-nine States of Germany were loosely knit 
together in a Confederation, represented by a Diet without 
executive power. Unlucky Poland was again divided up 
between Austria, Russia, and Prussia. Finland fell into the 
hands of Russia, and Norway into those of Sweden. Italy 
was rent into nine pieces, had to cede Lombardy to Austria, 
and became, as Metternich said, merely a "geographical ex- 
pression." Britain strengthened the foundation of her 
colonial Empire by the gain of Malta, Heligoland, Cape 
Colony, Ceylon, Trinidad, and St. Lucia. 

Yet, in spite of its many shortcomings and injustices, the 
treaty signed at Vienna preserved a system of balance among 
the Powers, which earned for Europe at least forty years of 
peace in which to rebuild her lost prosperity. An additional 
clause which enabled the Powers to meet from time to time 
to deal with the affairs of Europe went further still in the 
matter of setting up an international form of Commonwealth. 
There were^even men who talked in those days, as in these, 
of a League of Nations, that should enforce international law 
and preserve peace among a kind of United States of Europe. 

Unfortunately, the spirit of reaction was far too strong, 
and the practical and immediate effect was that the four 
strongest States— Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Britain— 
merely joined hands in order the better to poUce France 
and to maintain the peace of the Western World. 

Outwardly, indeed, the terms of the proposed " Holy 
Alliance," as announced by Alexander of Russia, sounded 
well enough. Not only the rulers of the Great Powers, but 



198 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

the heads of all the European States were to join in bond to 
"take for their sole guidance the precepts of the Christian 
religion, and to strengthen themselves every day more and 
more in the principles and exercises of the duties which the 
Divine Saviour has taught to mankind." 

For very different reasons the Pope, the Sultan of Turkey, 
and the Regent of Britain refused to join the AlHance ; and, 
though it may not have been the " piece of sublime mysticism 
and nonsense " that Castlereagh described it, the Holy 
Alliance had no effect whatever upon the political state of 
Europe. 

EXERCISES 

1. Show what general principles underlay the French 
Revolution. 

2. Sketch some points in a debate for and against the motion 
" That the French Revolution was an unmitigated evil for 
Europe." 

3. How far did Napoleon succeed in forming his World 
Empire ? What economic principles were involved in his success 
and failure ? 

4. What was the effect upon the world of the Wars of the 
French Revolution ( 1 793-1 8 1 5 ) ? 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE ERA OF PROGRESS AND REFORM 
(1815-1914) 

THE really important effects of the period of Revolu- 
tion are to be seen in the century that followed. This 
century was marked by some of the finest construc- 
tive work that the world has known ; and yet it has 
been truly said that it was on the destructive side that the 
Revolution was most effective. For not until abuses were 
swept away could the forces of progress be free to work. 

Destructive Work — Thus, in France and Germany, the 
last relics of feudal serfdom had to be swept away by the 
armies of Napoleon before the field was clear for the building 
up of two new nations, on very different lines. In France 
the Code Napoleon gave a system of justice as just and 
balanced as that of the famous Roman Law on which it was 
based ; and the establishment of a national system of educa- 
tion opened the door of "equal opportunity " to the people. 
But for many years France in her newborn freedom was merely 
experimenting with schemes of reform ; it is in Britain that 
we see the development of the Revolution more fully carried 
out. 

Here again the destructive side had to come first. The 
industrial changes which were making the country wealthy had 
threatened to sweep away the peaceful life of the country- 
side. The influence of the agriculturists of Holland on the 
improvement of " tillage " led the landowners to enclose 
large tracts of land hitherto " common " ; and the cottagers 
suffered the loss of the bit of waste ground that had enabled 
them to keep a pig or a cow. 

Wages were very low, work very scarce, and whole parishes 

199 



200 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

were deserted by labourers and their families, who found it 
better worth while to "go on tramp." DemobiHzed soldiers 
flooded the hungry countryside, and the bad harvests and 
consequent high price of com almost destroyed the possi- 
bility of existence for agricultural workers. 

Nor were matters improved by the action of the Government 
in using the rates for "poor relief," thus enabling the greedy 
employer to assure himself that these would fully compensate 
for a starvation wage. In the crowded towns matters were 
worse still. At first sight the Revolution would seem to have 
destroyed the first principles of humanity and liberty when 
crowds of little pauper children were sent to work in the 
factories ; when unemployed workers could be imprisoned 
for refusing to work on the employers' terms ; when over 
one hundred thousand persons were found each year in 
gaol ; when over two hundred offences were punishable by 
death. 

Reconstruction — It was in this field, rife with abuses, 
that the " Fraternity " principle of the Revolution had to 
work. In spite of the crippling of the country by the ex- 
penses of twenty years of war, in spite of aU the enormous 
difficulties of reconstruction in a period of scarcity and social 
unrest, the year 1830 saw measures of reform already on foot. 
By that year, the date of the opening of the first British 
railway, the Factory Acts had begun, slowly but surely, to 
safeguard the lives and health of women and children in in- 
dustry. Within a short time (1833) negro slavery had been 
abolished in our colonies ; the Poor Law absurdities had been 
swept away, the Penal Code had been revised, and the repeal of 
the Corn Laws had opened the granaries of Europe to a hungry 
people. Most important of all was the Reform Act of 1832, 
which gave the vote to the middle-class population of Britain 
and prepared the way for the later steps that have given every 
citizen a chance of making his voice heard in the government 
of his country. 

These reforms were the result of the change that we call 
the Industrial Revolution. We have seen the bad side of it 
in the temporary devastation of agricultural England, and 



THE ERA OF PROGRESS AND REFORM 201 

in the overcrowding and degraded social conditions of the 
factory workers. 

Most great changes, however, bring great evils in their 
train ; and when these evils have attention called to them 
by their very grossness, the work of reform does not end 
with them. The industrial system, by its dependence on the 
artisan, forced the Government to give that artisan his vote. 
The need of connecting the centres of industry led to the 
construction of the great highways and waterways of the land, 
as well as the telegraph and telephone. The importance of 
building up industry by means of strong and virile workers 
dictated the measures of health reform that have swept at 
least three mortal diseases almost out of existence and 
taught us how to control others. And the life of the town, 
the co-operation needed in modem industry, between 
workers themselves, as well as between employer and em- 
ployed, besides leading to the formation of the great Trade 
Unions, have afforded to the manual workers a chance of 
wider and quicker mental existence, a " clash of minds," as well 
as higher ideals of the more material side of life. 

Thus, while the ideal of the Revolution in France was a 
strong constitutional government, that of England is seen to be 
the redress of abuses ; and in both cases these were to lead to 
" a more perfect expression of the public will." 

The fact that Europe was more or less at peace during the 
years 1815-1845, and again from 1871-1914, enabled the pro- 
gress of reform to go on apace both in Britain and on the 
Continent. 

But the twenty-six years that lie between 1845 and 1871 
were to see another period of violent disturbance in the 
Western World, with the result of making greater changes on 
the map of Europe than those that appeared after Waterloo. 

Rise o£ the National Ideal — Early in the nineteenth 
century there had arisen in many parts of Europe a craving for 
a national ideal, that " most important of all nation-moulding 
factors," ^ implying the " possession of a common tradition, 
a memory of sufferings endured and victories won in common, 
^ Muir, Nationalism and Internationalism. 



202 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

expressed in song and legend, in the dear names of great 
personalities that seem to embody in themselves the character 
and ideal of the nation." 

The first outcome of this had been the successful revolt of 
the Greeks from the rule of Turkey, the separation of HoUand 
from Belgium, the independent Republics of the Spanish 
South American colonies, which " called into existence a New 
World to redress the balance of the Old." 

But similar national movements in Poland and Italy came 
to nothing, and under the iron hand of Metternich Middle 
Europe lay, outwardly at least, repressed. 

France, however, won her first triumph of nationalism 
when she overthrew the House of Bourbon in 1830 and set 
up a constitutional " middle class " monarchy under Louis 
PhiUppe of the House of Orleans. 

This was but the overture to the drama. 

Europe 1848-1852 — In February 1848 the real struggle 
for nationalism began to rage, and Europe seethed with the 
spirit of revolt for the, cause of freedom. In Italy, Mazzini 
was gathering the forces of his " Young Italy " party to 
support Charles Albert, the new King of Piedmont, in his effort 
to drive out Austria and throw off the hated yoke of the 
" foreigners." 

In France the weak-kneed "citizen king," Louis Philippe, 
was forced to flee to England for safety before a republican 
mob which clamoured for a Republic ; and, immediately 
this was established, aU Europe blazed up in revolution. 

Within one week (March 15-23) the Magyars of Hungary 
set up a free state, with their patriot Kossuth as president ; 
and the Czechs of Bohemia did the same. A Constitutional 
Government was granted to the Papal States of Italy by Pope 
Pius IX ; Milan and Venice proclaimed themselves inde- 
pendent republics ; and Charles Albert, King of Sardinia and 
Piedmont, declared war upon Austria. 

Metternich fell, and with him the last remnant of the 
ancien regime in Europe. 

In that same breathless week almost every German State 
demanded a free constitution and reform, and when a 



THE ERA OF PROGRESS AND REFORM 203 

National Parliament was summoned, won at least the principle 
of constitutional government. 

Then Austria recovered herself, and the revolution 
collapsed. The smaller " nations " were put down, Prussia 
was reduced to a secondary position, and the Austrian 
Emperor, Francis Joseph, dominated the German States. 

In France, the Repubhc was swept away, and another 
Napoleon was advanced from President to Emperor. By the 
year 1850 the democratic outbreak in the cause of nationahsm 
seemed to have failed. 

Two countries, however, crushed for the moment, were 
still holding fast to their hopes of freedom ; and the rise of a 
united Italy and a united Germany marks the next period of 
European history. 

Europe 1852-1870 — The prehminary to the struggle was 
the ill-fated attempt of Napoleon III to make himself the 
" Arbiter of Europe " in days when the Continent was still 
seething with unrest. 

The second act of the drama brings to the fore that " Eastern 
Question " which has always been the problem of Europe 
since the fall of the Eastern Empire in 1453. 

Ever since the days of Peter the Great the control of the 
" highway of the Straits " of Constantinople had been the 
chief object of the national pohcy of Russia; and a long 
series of wars with Turkey had brought her nearer to her aim. 

Early in the century Russian, French, and British ships 
had destroyed the Turkish fleet at Navarino, and forced the 
Sultan to grant independence to Greece. Now, in 1854, 
Russia made another bid for the possession of the city at 
whose gates her army had then stood. For Russia knew that 
the power that held Constantinople controlled the Bosphorus 
and the Dardanelles, as well as the highway to the great corn 
ports of the Black Sea. 

At this point, however. Great Britain came in to the 
support of Turkey. With her France threw in her lot, and 
shared in her somewhat inglorious success when Russia, 
vanquished in the Crimean War, appeared as a conquered foe 
before the Congress of Paris. 



204 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

This Treaty of Paris (1856) gave a new lease of life to the 
Turk in Europe, and imposed fresh hardships on Serbians 
and Bulgarians, and on the people of Thessaly and Macedonia, 
who still groaned under his rule. But it forbade Russia to 
maintain a fleet in the Black Sea, and thus set up a permanent 
grievance in that quarter, till the embargo was thrown off 
some fifteen years later, after the change of affairs which had 
then taken place. 

The " Eastern Question," so far, had resolved itself into 
the form : " Who is to control Constantinople, and with that 
city, the Balkans, the Black Sea, and the trade of Russia ? " 

We shall see how this question was reopened a few years 
later. 

The main point at present to keep in mind is the fact 
that Napoleon's apparent success in the defeat of Russia had 
encouraged him to come forward, without many qualifications 
for the part, as the champion of oppressed nationahties. 

His next opportunity of interference with the affairs of 
Europe arose in 1859, when Count Cavour, the Minister of 
Victor Emanuel, now King of Sardinia, made a determined 
bid for the unity of Italy by driving out the Austrians. 

Within a few months the armies of France and the National- 
ists had driven the Austrians from Lombardy, and high hopes 
were raised that Venetia would soon be also freed. But here 
the real treachery and incompetence of Napoleon showed 
itself. Having secured the duchy of Savoy and the port of 
Nice for France, he made a secret treaty with the Austrian 
Emperor and withdrew his troops. 

In principle, he was bound to support the ideal of nation- 
ality and so to aid both Italy and Germany towards unity. 
In practice, he feared a united Germany as much as the difii- 
culties which arose when a Catholic sovereign took a hand in a 
movement which meant the downfall of the temporal power of 
the Pope in Italy. So he fell between two impossible ideals, 
and by his fall dragged France into the Franco-German War 
of 1870. 

Meantime, however, the people of Italy, roused by the 
ideal of nationality hitherto so foreign to their minds, had 



THE ERA OF PROGRESS AND REFORM 205 

settled the question of unity for themselves. Tuscany, 
Modena, and Romagna threw off the Austrian yoke and were 
united in i860 to the kingdom of Victor Emanuel. Then 
Naples and Sicily revolted under Garibaldi and opened the 
gates of the former city to the king. It was not till 1870 that 
the Franco-German War precipitated the movement which sent 
Itahan troops into the Holy City. The Pope was deprived of 
his temporal power, and his sovereign state was restricted 
to the domain of the Vatican Palace. 

Thus the union of Italy was complete. 

Union 0! Germany— The next triumph of nationality in 
Europe made Germany, in name at least, a nation. We have 
seen the growth of that country, with its medley of states, 
its free cities, counties, and duchies, most of them independent 
of any central rule. The unification of these was the giant 
task of Bismarck. His policy was clearly set forth in his own 
words in 1862 : "My first task will be, with or without the help 
of parhament, to reorganize the army. The king (WiUiam I) 
has rightly set himself this task. He cannot, however, carry 
it through with his present councillors. When the army has 
been brought to such a state as to command respect, then I 
will take the first opportunity to declare war with Austria, 
burst asunder the German Confederation, bring the middle 
and smaller states into subjection, and give Germany a 
national union under the leadership of Prussia." 

Here we see the legacy of the old poHcy of the Elector 
William and his tall grenadiers, the militant poHcy that was 
to be the ruin of Europe in years to come. With this behind 
him, after the two powers had once crushed Denmark and 
divided Schleswig and Holstein between them, Bismarck 
made short work of Austria at the battle of Sadowa in 1866. 

The Franco-Prussian War — Bismarck was now strong 
enough to organize the North German States into a Con- 
federation, and to buy the friendship of Italy at the price 
of Venetia, taken from Austria ; though the Trentino, Istria 
and Dalmatia [Italia irridenta), were left as a sop to the con- 
quered. He could forthwith turn his attention to the dis- 
gusted ruler of France, who saw his borders threatened by his 



206 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

old nightmare, a united Germany. The angry attitude of 
Napoleon just suited Bismarck's mood. The latter knew 
the discredited position of the weak and vacillating Emperor 
in his own country, and could make sure of his prey before a 
blow was struck. An excuse was found when the revolu- 
tionists of Spain offered the vacant throne of that country to 
a HohenzoUern prince. The offer was refused, but the over- 
bearing demand of Napoleon that a HohenzoUern should 
never sit upon the throne of the Bourbons was all that 
Germany required. The sword was raised in July 1870, and 
two months later Napoleon was a prisoner at Sedan. In the 
following January the capitulation of a frozen and starving 
Paris ended the Franco-Prussian War. 

The humiliations that followed, the loss of Alsace and 
Lorraine and the payment of an immense indemnity, led at 
once to red revolution in France, when the " Commune " 
imposed another siege on Paris. This spectre had to be 
laid before the Third Republic was established, and this, under 
the guidance of M. Thiers, led to a marvellous resurrection 
for the country. 

The industry of the peasants, the revival of commerce, 
the reorganization of local government in every part of 
the land, and above all, the steady growth of the national spirit 
had their effect in the paying off of the indemnity within three 
years and the rapid advance of France on the path of economic 
success. 

But meantime by the success of German militarism Bismarck 
had achieved his greatest aim. The South German States, 
which had hitherto stood aloof, gave up their independence 
and joined the Confederation. At Versailles, on January 18, 
1871, William, King of Prussia, was declared German 
Emperor, and a united Germany could settle down to 
further plans of World Empire in the future. 

So far, the impulse of nationahty had won union for two 
of the most disunited territories in Europe. In Austria it 
had the opposite effect. 

Austria — After the debacle of 1867 the Emperor Francis 
Joseph I had allowed the Hapsburg territory to be divided 



THE ERA OF PROGRESS AND REFORM 207 

into two independent states, the Empire of Austria and the 
Kingdom of Hungary, under one sovereign. Had the people of 
these states been sharply divided into Germans in Austria 
and Magyars in Hungary, this might have worked well. But 
Austria comprised many people of the Slav and Magyar 
races, and under the new arrangement was intent upon forc- 
ing her rule also upon Roumanians, Czechs, and Italians of 
the Trentino. The Magyars, too, were no more liberal in 
their treatment of Roumanians, Serbians, and Slovakians, 
all hugging to themselves the remembrance of national ideals 
rudely frustrated. Here were all the elements of discord for 
the future. 

The Balkan States— We have seen how South-Eastern 
Europe had been hindered in her development by the slow- 
ness of her Slav population to absorb the civihzation left by 
Rome, by the traditions she inherited from the Empire of 
the East in its worst days, from the frequent invasion she 
suffered at the hands of Huns and Magyars, Tartars and 
Turks. 

We have seen also the kindling of the spark of nationality 
among these States of the Balkans, and its suppression by the 
Turk, whose treatment of Bulgaria amounted almost to 
extermination. It only needed an outburst of national spirit 
on the other side, in the movement of the " Young Turks," 
which united all the races of the Ottoman Empire into one 
nation, to cause a new blaze of patriotism to bum up in 
Greece, in Serbia, in Bulgaria, and Montenegro, nominally 
over the massacres in many-peopled Macedonia, but actually 
to win a new charter of independence from the Turk. 

The First Balkan War ended in a blow to the Turkish 
power which took from her Crete and all her territory except 
the district round Constantinople. Then the allies quarrelled 
over Macedonia in a Second Balkan War (1913), which removed 
large districts from Bulgaria and gave great part of Macedonia 
to Greece, Serbia, and Montenegro. 

The foregoing recital has told mainly of the wars and 
revolts by which Europe struggled through to the attainment 
of some at least of her national aims. Roughly, we can 



208 



A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 



see by this time how Modern Europe has been evolved and 
how her map stood at the eve of the Great War. But one 
thing remains to be said. Although Italy, Germany, and, 
to a certain extent, the Balkan States had reached their aims 
in the matter of creating national and united states, others 
yet remained restless and unsatisfied. Alsace-Lorraine, 
Schleswig, Trentino, Poland, and Bohemia held within them 
the possibilities of ready revolt from an alien rule. The 
beginning of the twentieth century found Europe quiet on 
the surface, but by no means at rest. 

EXERCISES 

1. Trace the growth of the National Spirit in Europe with 
regard to two of her nations. 

2. Mark briefly the steps which led to the union of Germany. 

3. Trace the effects upon France of the great European move- 
ments of this era. 

SOME BOOKS RECOMMENDED FOR FURTHER STUDY 



Lavisse et Rambaud 


Histoire Generale. 




Cambridge Modern History. 


Symonds .... 


Renaissance Studies. 


Hakluyt .... 


Discoveries, 


Justin M'Carthy 


The Epoch of Reform. 


GiBBINS .... 


Industrial History. 


Marvin .... 


Century of Hope. 


Brailsford , . 


A League of Nations. 


Hearnshaw . 


Main Currents of European History, 




181S-1915. 


Pollard .... 


Factors in Modern History. 


Rose 


Development of the European Nations, 




I 870-1900. 


Seignobos .... 


History of Contemporary Civilisation. 


Acton 


Lectures on Modern History. 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE WORLD OF TO-DAY 
(1900-1920) 

IT has been well said that during the nineteenth century 
the history of Europe had become the history of the 
world. The truth of this will be acknowledged by 
those who have seen all the nations of the earth 
fighting in a world war that had its apparent origin in a 
remote European State. It will be realized more fully if 
we grasp the extraordinary expansion of Europe during 
the last century. 

The Expansion o! Europe (1815-1914) — Look back for 
an instant at the sixteenth century. In those days European 
civilization was known only in France, Britain, the Nether- 
lands, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Bohemia. Russia stood 
aloof from it. Scandinavia and Poland knew almost as 
little of it as the South-East of Europe, which was entirely 
under Ottoman influences. 

Then came the era of geographical discovery and coloniza- 
tion, the full effects of which were not felt till the beginning 
of the present century. 

We have seen how, early in the nineteenth century, the 
States of Central and South America revolted against the 
rule of Spain and Portugal and became independent. A 
great wave of European immigration followed, and in the 
year 1907 representatives of the republic then set up ap- 
peared at the Congress at The Hague as equal members of a 
European conference. " Thus, during the nineteenth century, 
the whole South American continent was added to the 
European political realm.'' ^ 

1 Stanley Leathes, Cambridge Modern History. 
14 



210 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

In North America, the United States had expanded into 
a great nation, almost entirely composed of Europeans and 
African negroes, the Yellow Race (Chinamen) being excluded 
as far as possible. In Canada, British and French, in a 
blending of races, had settled side by side. 

In the southern hemisphere, the Australian States, all 
peopled by Europeans, had united into a great Federal 
Union, and became a Commonwealth in 1900 ; and New 
Zealand had become a self-governing British Dominion. 

South Africa, in the beginning of the present century, 
had seen a war between the Dutch farmers and the more 
progressive new-comers from Europe, and had agreed to a 
peaceful settlement, which established British and Dutch 
interests from the Cape to the Zambesi. 

The remainder of Africa had been almost entirely parcelled 
out among Western nations. France occupied Tunis (1881- 
1884), and made her influence supreme from Algeria to the 
Congo. The Congo Free State was annexed by Belgium. 
Britain dominated the vaUey of the Lower Niger and shared 
Somaliland with France and Italy ; she also occupied 
Egypt, the Sudan, Uganda, and Rhodesia. Italy held the 
southern shore of the Red Sea. Germany and Portugal ruled 
territories in South- West and Eastern Africa. 

In Asia alone we see a solid boundary set to European 
influence, by the Ottoman Empire, which, in Asia Minor, 
Mesopotamia, Syria, and Arabia, appeared quite impene- 
trable by Western civilization. Siberia, on the other hand, 
which not long ago was a region of mysterious twilight, 
has been opened up by the Great Siberian Railway, com- 
menced in 1891 ; and Russia, in her desire for Eastern 
expansion, had touched the frontiers of Persia and Turkestan. 
Japan — But Russia, with her great unwieldy territory, her 
despotic rule, her hundred million people, barely emancipated 
from serfdom, her vast feudal estates and imperial domains, 
could never hope to be a World Conqueror. Checked by 
British diplomacy and antagonism in Afghanistan, she tried 
in 1905 to establish a claim on Manchuria and the Liaotung 
peninsula, a claim that brought her face to face with a new 



THE WORLD OF TO-DAY 211 

opponent. Upon Japan's small but efficient shoulders fell 
the task of driving back the Russian from the Pacific coast. 
Through her success Japan became allied with Great Britain, 
and, after peace was established with Russia, agreed with 
this country and with France to act as " policeman " in the 
Far East. 

The part played by Japan both then and in the World 
War has awakened the Western World to her importance 
as a new industrial power. Her development has been 
extraordinarily rapid in this respect. Within forty years, 
exclusive, aristocratic Japan, with her mediaeval feudalism 
and cottage industries, has not only become a first-class 
industrial power, but has accomplished the industrial revolu- 
tion which it took Britain a century and a half to bring 
about. At this moment she still suffers from the draw- 
backs of rapid progress — ^unhygienic factories, bad sanitation, 
inadequate machinery, long work hours, and low wages ; 
but these are the inevitable sequences of an abundance of 
labour and a scarcity of capital. What assures her future 
is the character of the Japanese worker, " his health, cheer- 
fulness, and general intelligence " {Report on Japanese Labour, 
IQ20, by Mr. Oswald White). 

China — Already her great neighbour China had roused 
herself from her dream of centuries. In the Revolution of 
1900 she had driven out the last Emperor of that Manchurian 
dynasty which had reigned for nearly three centuries, 
and set up a Republic in place of her vast unwieldy Empire. 
Since then her rapid progress in Western education, and her 
prohibition of the opium traffic and of the many mediaeval 
customs that crippled her men and her women both physically 
and mentally, have brought her into close connexion with 
the world from which she had so long held herself aloof. 
Her fine railways, factories, and machinery also point towards 
a career of industrial success ; though here her race character- 
istics may play a part greater than, though very different 
from, those of Japan. 

Meantime, while the Eastern World was thus making 
steady progress, a cloud was gathering upon the Western 



212 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

horizon that was shortly to envelop the world in the cataclysm 
of a great war. 

The Great War (1914-1919)— Amongst the Great Powers of 
Europe, two, in particular, in the earlier years of the present 
century, were in need of economic expansion ; and both 
looked to one part of the East as the gateway of their 
desires. 

For Russia, the possession of Constantinople and the 
control of the Straits had always been a supreme need. 
Essentially Eastern in her outlook, in spite of a thin veneer 
of Western civilization, the rule of the Imperial city of the 
East, seat of the Patriarch of the Church to which she gave 
allegiance, was a matter of importance to a nation essentially 
religious in mind. Still more important was the control 
of the Straits, the outlet to the Mediterranean, without 
which she was incapable of trading effectively anywhere 
to the west of her own territory. For, though in peace the 
Straits lie open to the merchantmen of every nation, the 
Sultan, who has the right to close them in time of war, can, 
by so doing, " shut up the Black Sea fleet as in a lake." ^ To 
gain the Mediterranean, Russia would then have to sail 
from Baltic ports that are frozen part of the year, round the 
west coast of Europe, and through the Straits of Gibraltar. 

To Germany the control of the Turkish power was equally 
important, for it meant to her the door to the economic 
advantages of Asia Minor. If she could but get into her 
hands the railway to Bagdad and link it up with Berlin, a 
rich and backward country must lie at the feet of the great 
German capitalists. 

To the Balkan States the Straits were of no less import- 
ance. Roumania depended upon them for £dl, Bulgaria for 
nearly all, her commerce ; and the whole of the Balkan 
region was bound to fall under the control of any Great 
Power which could estabUsh itself in the peninsula. 

These facts may serve to explain some of the causes of 
the Great War ; and with them may be noted the position 
of Serbia, an independent and hostile little kingdom block- 
1 Brailsford, A League of Nations, 



THE WORLD OF TO-DAY 213 

ing the way of the railway that was to afford Germany a 
road to Constantinople and Bagdad. 

The first step towards the war had been taken, therefore, 
in 1898, when William Hohenzollern, at the Court of Abdul 
Hamid, the " Sick Man of Europe," declared himself the 
" protector of the Ottoman Empire, the patron of the Moham- 
medan religion throughout the world, the ally of Allah " ; and 
forthwith proceeded to reorganize the Turkish army on 
German lines. 

We live in days too near the Great War to be able to dis- 
entangle all the motives and causes of the terrible process of 
destruction, which gradually involved practically the whole 
world. 

From the Pacific Ocean, where the naval forces of 
Australia and New Zealand swept Germany from New 
Guinea and the islands of Oceania in 1914, to Kiao-chau 
seized by the fleet of Japan ; from African Togoland and 
the Cameroons to Mesopotamia and the sites of ancient 
world empires ; from Egypt and the Holy Land, with all 
their old and sacred associations, to the world of America in 
the youth of existence, fighting " to make the world safe for 
democracy," the torch of war was carried in haste. Cuba 
and Panama, Brazil and Siam, Liberia and China played 
their part, and thus the war-cycle of the whole earth was 
completed. 

This is not the place to tell the story of the war, but two 
main incidents belong to world history. In March 1917 
Russia's Revolution caused the downfall and death of the 
Czar and his family and the setting up of a socialistic state 
under the dictator Kerensky. 

Almost immediately the many widely different races of 
which the country was composed — Cossacks, Ukraines, Finns, 
Siberians, and Russians — broke up into different factions, and 
Russia, involved in a terrible internal conflict, fell out of the 
European War. 

On II November 1918, Germany was forced to sue for 
peace ; and this was formally declared in 1919. 

A terrible world war such as this was bound to leave 



214 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 

behind it an atmosphere of unrest, a legacy of pressing social 
problems. But it has not been fought in vain if it has done 
two things at least. It should have taught the world that 
government based on military power alone carries with it 
the seeds of destruction. It should also have taught the 
need of some such organization as a League of Nations based 
on the ideal of co-operation in the work of civilization. 

During these long centuries, through whose vistas we have 
but glanced, the Empires of the world, used in the old bad 
sense of the autocratic rule of one nation over many others, 
have passed, like shadows, away. In their place there is 
hope of a new world story, with universal brotherhood as its 
aim in place of universal domination ; in whose days the 
wars which stain the pages of the past may become incredible 
legends for the Children of the Future. 



EXERCISES 

1. Give some account of the development of Modern Japan. 

2. Explain the importance of Constantinople to the European 
Powers. 

3. In what sense was the Great War a World War ? Illustrate 
by a map. 

4. Show the expansion of Europe during the nineteenth and 
twentieth centuries. 



INDEX 



Acre, 114 
Acropolis, the, 44 
Africa, 58, 60, 65, 175 
— • Union of South, 176, 210 

— West, 157 
Age, Bronze, 4 

— Stone, 2, 3 
Ages, Dark, 78 
Agricola, 44 
Alaric, 71 
Alcibiades, 50 
Alcuin, 100 

Alexander the Great, 23, 26, 50 

Alexander III, Pope, 124 

Alexandria, 51 

AUemanni, 95 

Alsace, 79, 154, 181, 206 

America, 164, 168, 171 

— Central, 161 

— United States of, 173, 213 
Amiens, Peace of, 195 
Angles, the, 94 
Antwerp, 129, 141 
Aquitaine, 95 

Aragon, 121, 160 
Arabia, 71, 85 
Arabs, Sy, iii 
Aristophanes, 49 
Aristotle, 49, 126 
Aryans, 35, 55, 66 
Asia, Central, 13, 23, 46 

— Minor, 4, 43, 59, 84, iii, 133, 

212 

— Western, 23, 34, 86, iii, 129, 

210 
Assyria, 10, 17, 53 
Athens, 45 . 

Attila, 73 
Augustine, St., 82 

— Bishop of Hippo, 72 
Augustus, 59 
Austerlitz, 195 

Babylon, 10, 14 

— Second Empire of, 16 



Bagdad, 88, 116 

Balkan Peninsula, 41, 115, 152, 
207 

— States, 208, 212 

— Wars, 207 

Barbarian invasion, 71, 77 
Barbarossa, Frederick, 124 
Bartholomew, St., Massacre of, 

153 
Basques, 54 
Bavaria, 155 
Belgium, 153, 202 
Benedictines, the, 104 
" Benevolent Despots," 178, 180 
Bengal, 166 
Berlin, Treaty of, 177 
Biscay, Bay of, 95 
Bismarck, 205 
Bohemia, 123, 155, 208 
Bokhara, 132 
Book of the Dead, 9 
Brahma, 36 
Britain, 25, 59, 67 

— Great, 189, 197, 203 
Bruges, 129 
Buddha, 33, 39, 108 
Bulgarians, 93, 195 
Buonaparte, Napoleon, 194 

Caligula, 61 
Canada, 169, 172 

— Act, 1 73 

" Capitalism," 142 

Carolingians, 95 

Castile, 121, 160 

Cathay, 160 

Catherine the Great, 187 

Caucasus Mountains, 54 

Celestine, Pope, 81 

Chaldaea, 16 

Charlemagne, S,y, 96, 99 

Charles V, Emperor, 151 

China, 13, 30, 33, 46, 89, 133, 160, 

211 
City States, 46 



21S 



216 



A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 



Claudius, 6i 

Clement VII, Pope, 151 

Cleopatra's Needle, 10 

Clive, Robert, 167 

Clovis, 79, 95 

Cluny, 104 

Code Napoleon, 199 

Colonies, American, the, 169, 171 

Columbus, Christopher, 143, 160 

Commonwealth of Europe, 196 

Commune, the, 206 

Confucius, 32 

Congo River, 157 

Constantine the Great, 69 

Constantinople, 84, 94, 98, 112, 

134, 139, 203, 212 
Corinth, 128 
Cortes, F., 161 
Crimea, the, 203 
Crusades, the, iii 
Cyrus, 17, 22 

Damascus, 24, 116 

Danube, River, 60, 100, 122 

Darius, 22 

" Dark Ages," the, 93 

Delhi, 38 

Delos, 47 

Denmark, 122 

Desiderius, 96 

Diocletian, 68 

Dnieper, River, 132 

Dominicans, the, 117 

Dorians, the, 43 

Draco, 48 

Dupleix, 167 

Duquesne, 170 

East India Company, 158, 166 
" Eastern Question," the, 204 
Egypt, 7, 9, IT, 59, 68 
Empire, Angevin, 117 

— Chinese, 131, 177 

— Eastern, 71, 80, 103, 134, 139 

— Egyptian, 8, 10, 11 

— Frankish, 79, 97 

— German, 206 

— Great Mogul, 164 

— Greek, 118 

— Holy Roman, 122 

— Mohammedan, 85, iii 

— Mongolian, 93, 131 

— Ottoman, 187, 195, 210, 213 

— Persian, 84 



Empire, Roman, 75, 83 
— Western, 66, 70, 81, 98, loi 
England, 116 
Ephors, 47 
Epicureans, 62 
Etruscans, 54 
Euclid, 51 

Euphrates, River, 14, 59, 70 
Euripides, 49 

Europe, 41, 54, 68, 70, 78, 82, 99, 
126, 196, 203, 209 

Factory Acts, 200 

Feudalism, 103, 120, 139 

Ferdinand of Aragon, 121, 160 

Firdusi, 24 

Flaminius, 51 

Flanders, 116, 129 

France, 90, 116, 120, 144, 153, 179, 

194 
Francis II. Emperor, 125 
Franciscans, the, 117 
Franks, the, 79, 90, 95 
Frederick Barbarossa, 124 
Frederick the Great, 182, 192 
Frederick II, Emperor, 124 

Gama, Vasco da, 164 

Gaul, 59, 68, 73 

Gautama, 39 

Genghis Khan, 93, 131 

Genoa, 129 

Germania, 59 

Germans, 65, 93 

Germany, 116, 154, 196, 205 

Gilds, 128 

Goths, 77, 81, 90 

Greece, i, 4, 25, 41, 43, 46, 58, 

68 
Gregory the Great, 81 
Gregory VII, Pope, 113, 117 
Greenland, 10 1 

Guelphs and Ghibellines, 119, 123 
Gustavus Adolphus, 154 

Hadrian, Pope, 96 
Hammurabi, "Code" of, 14 
Hannibal, 58 
Hanseatic League, 155 
Hapsburg, House of, 125 
Harmachis, 8 
Hasdrubal, 58 
Hebrews, the, 16, 28 
Helen of Troy, 44 



INDEX 



217 



Hellenes, 45 

Himalayas, 165 

Henry IV, Emperor, 113, 117 

Henry VI, Emperor, 124 

Henry I of England, 113 

Henry II of England, 124 

Henry III of England, 114 

Henry VIII of England. 150 

Henry IV of France, 153, 179 

Henry, Prince, the Navigator, 157 

Hohenstaufen, 125 

Holland, 156, 180, 194 

Holy Alliance, the, 197 

Homer, 43 

Horace, 60 

Hudson Bay Company, 170 

Huguenots, 153, 179 

Hundred Years War, the, 128 

Hungary, 122, 202 

Huns, 65, 73 

Hyksos Kings, 9 

Iberians, 54, 121 
Iceland, 158 

India, 13, 25, 35, 38, 164, 167 
Indo-Germanic tribes, 54 
Inn, River, 95 
Ireland, 159 
Isabella of Castile, 160 
Islam, 87, 90 

Italy, 68, 90, 96, 103, 123, 129, 
195, 204, 208 

James II, 152 

Japan, 34, 94, 106, 160, 210 

Jerusalem, 28, 84, 112, 114 

Jews, the, 28, 66 

Joseph II of Austria, 183 

Judaea, 16 

Julius Caesar, 59 

Justinian, 80 

Jutes, the, 94 

Karnak, 11 
Kiao-chau, 177 
Knossos, 5 
Korea, 34, 108, 132 
Kosciusko, 186 
Kossuth, 202 
Kubla Khan, 108 

Lares and Penates, 56 

Latins, 54 

League of Nations, 197, 214 

15 



Leo the Great, Pope, 73, 81 
Leo III, 98 
Leo X, 150 
Leonidas, 48 
Lombards, 94, 96 
Louis IX of France, 120 
Louis XIV, 170, 179 
Louis Philippe, 202 
Louis the Pious, 102 
Luther, M., 150 
Lutzen, 154 
Lydia, 46 
Lysimachus, 5 

Macedon, 23 
Macedonia, 58, 68 
Machiavelli, 140 
Madras, 166 
Magyars, 93 
Mahabharata, 38 
Marathon, 23 
Marco Polo, 34, 108 
Martel, Charles, 90, 95 
Maximilian, 151 
Maximus Pontifex, 62 
Mayflower, the, 159 
Mazzini, 202 
Mecca, 85 
Medes, the, 20 

Medina, 86 

Mediterranean Sea, 12, 24, 116. 
129, 212 

Memphis, 7 

Menepthah, 11 

Menes, 7 

Mesopotamia, 14, 25, 68, 86, 213 

Metternich, 202 

Mexico, 143, 161 

Milan, 129 

— Edict of, 69 

Minos, King, 41 

Mohammed, 85, 11 1, 136 

Mongols, 34, 108, III 

Monroe Doctrine, 173 

Moors, the, 97, 121, 160 

Moslems, 87 

Nantes, Edict of, 153 

Naples, 91 

Nationality, rise of, 138, 148 

Nausicaa, 44 

Nelson, 195 

Nero, 61 ^ 

New Zealand, 175, 210 



218 



A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 



Newfoundland, 159, 163 
Nicephorus, 88 
Nile, River, 8, 23 
Nineveh, 14 
North Sea, 71 
Northmen, 83, loi 
Nova Scotia, 159 

Oceania, 177 
Odessa, 188 
Odoacer, 77 
Olympia, 4, 47 
Olympus, Mt., 44 
Orleans, 120 
Othman, 134 
Otto the Great, 122 
Ottoman Empire, 186, 195 

— Turks, 134 
Osiris, 8 
Ostrogoths, 80 
Oude, 39 
Ovid, 60 

Paleologus, John, 135 
Palestine, 10, 29, 72, 112 
Paris, 120 

— Peace of, 171 

— Treaty of, 204 
Pavia, 94 

Peace of Westphalia, 178 

Pelasgi, 54 

Peloponnesus, 46 

Penelope, 44 

Pepin, 95 

Pericles, 48 

Persia, 11, 21, 47, 92, 109, 131, 210 

Persian Gulf, 25, 93 

Peru, 163 

Peter the Great, 184 

Pharaoh, 11 

Pheidias, 49 

Philip Augustus, 120 

Philip IV of France, 120 

Philip of Macedon, 50 

Philip II of Spain, 153 

Philippines, 160 

Phoenicia, 16, 24 

Pius IX, Pope, 202 

Plassej'. battle of, 167 

Plato, 49, 62 

Poland, 123, 186, 196 

Poor Law, the, 200 

Port Arthur, 177 

Portugal, 157 



Prussia, 155, 181, 194, 196, 205 
Punjaub, the, 35 
Pyramids, the, 8 
Pyrenees Mountains, 120 
Pyrrhus, 58 

Quebec, 169 

Ra, 8 

Rameses II, 11 
Raphael, 140 
Ravenna, 77, 96 
Red Sea, the, 10, 85 
Reform Act, 200 
Reformation, the, 148 

— Counter, 151 
Renaissance, the, 139, 148 
Revolution, French, 191, 200 

— Industrial, 189 
Rheims, 79 

Rhine, River, 60, 95, 100 

Richard I of England, 114 

Richelieu, 154, 179 

Rig- Veda, the, 36 

Roderick, King, 90 

Roe, SirThos., 165 

Rome, 53, ^5, 57, 76 

Rosetta Stone, the, 12 

Rudolf, Emperor, 125 

Russia, 46, 103, 132, 184, IQ5, 197, 

210, 213 
Rustem, li 
Ruy Diaz, 121 

Sadowa, 105 
Samaria, 18 
Samnites, 54 
Samurai, 108 
Saracens, 90, 121 
Sargon, 19 
Saxons, 94 

Scandinavia, 94, 103, 152 
Scotland 102, 152 
Sedan, 206 

Seljukian Turks, 92, no, 132 
Serbia, 135, 207 
Seven Years War, 167 
Shakespeare, 140 
Sheba, Queen of, 10 
Sicily, 54, 38, 91, 124 
Sid on, 24 
Silesia, 182 
I Slavery abolished, 191, 200 
Slavs, 186 



INDEX 



219 



Socrates, 49 

Sohrab, 21 

Solon, 46 

Sophocles, 49 

Spain, 25, 59, 65, 68, 90, 121, 143 

Sparta, 47 

States, United, of America, 171, 

173 
Stephen II, Pope, 95 
Stettin, 141 
Stoic, 62 
Surat, 166 
Susa, 23 

Switzerland, 125, 152 
Syria, 10, 58, 68 

Tamerlaine, 132 

Taoism, 32 

Tartars, 73, 93, 106 

Teutonic knights, 126 

- — tribes, 93 

Thebes, 10 

Theodoric, 80 

Theodosius, 70 

Themistocles, 48 

Thermop3dse, 48 

Thothmes, 10 

Thrace, 68 

Tiber, River, 55, 59 

Tibet, 132 

Tigris, River, 14 

Tirj^hs, 5, 42 

Towns, rise of, 127 

Trafalgar, 195 

Troy, 4 

Turkestan, 131 

Turkey, 198, 203 

Turks, Seljuldan, 92, no, 132 

Tuscany, 55 

Tyre, 24, 26 



Ukraine, the, 65, 184 
Umbrians, 54 

United States of America, 171 
Utrecht, Treaty of, 181 

Vandals, 65, 75 
Vedas, the, 36 
Venice, 124, 129 
Versailles, 206 
Vespucci, Amerigo, 160 
Vienna, Congress of, 196 
Virgil, 60 
Vishna, 37 
Visigoths, 71, 73, 90 
Vladimir, 103 
Volscians, 54 

Wallen stein, 154 
War, the Great, 212 
Washington, George, 170 
Wei-hai-wei, 177 
Westphalia, Peace of, 154, 17S 
White Sea, 93 
William of Normandy, 120 
William III of England, 153, 

180 
William the Silent, 153 
William II, German Emperor. 

213 
Worms, Diet of , 151 

Xerxes, 23 

York, 100 
Ypres, 129 

Zeus, 44 
Zipango, 160 
Zoroaster, 21 
Zwingli, 152 



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